


Luminescence

by confetticlockwork



Series: In Any Universe [1]
Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Coven
Genre: F/F, Slow Burn-ish, Sort of a Cordelia character study, Strays away from canon slightly, foxxay - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-24
Updated: 2014-06-30
Packaged: 2018-01-26 07:00:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 32,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1679021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/confetticlockwork/pseuds/confetticlockwork
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The new witch could not have arrived at a worse time, but something about her being thrust suddenly under the Coven's protection makes Cordelia think that perhaps it is fate's way of an apology. </p><p>The Coven and the Cajun through the eyes of Cordelia Foxx.</p><p>Cordelia/Misty-centered long one-shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own American Horror Story. This is a non-profit work of ficiton.
> 
> It is also really long because I am obsessed with this pairing, and I may continue it with an additional ending chapter for some sense of closure, potentially involving Cordelia rescuing Misty, but only if people want me to.

People say that you don’t appreciate something until you lose it. She never really agreed with that; there have been moments of shameless appreciation in her past just for the sake of it, as opposed to an awareness of the finite nature of things. She agrees with it now, however, because as much as she appreciated the beauty of the world, she has taken sight for granted her entire life, and now she no longer has it.

 

The blackness is crushing; the nightmare of being unable to open your eyes and wake up. Throughout her life, she has felt tiny. Her mother and her husband and her painfully obvious lack of ability reassure her that it’s almost luck that she is a part of the Coven. She is used to being defenceless, belittled, helpless, but never like this. She sits alone in her bedroom, grasping a cane that must act as her vision. She must place her trust in others now; trust them to guide her safely down something as simple as a staircase, trust them not to turn around and stab her in the back…or in the front, she wouldn’t see it coming either way.

 

Her mother’s enemies are her enemies, she realises this. She racks her brains in the abundant time she has, but can think of no one whom she has affected to the extent that they would sear and scorch away a sense so essential that she is left a trembling, anxious mess. She remembers the way the world looked before. Her memories glow and shimmer. There was beauty in everything. It probes the hole in her open even further to think that she’ll never look upon her girls again, never see day fade into night, or a cat curled up lazily on a wall, or feel dazzled by the reflection of the sun off water, or relate the scent of blossom to the petals twirling off trees. She would weep if the acid hadn’t damaged her tear ducts so terribly.

 

She isn’t entirely bereft, however. The Second Sight came at a high price, but the truth has never been clearer. A single touch, and a person’s whole life. It’s also a burden, of course. No one will ever touch her thoughtlessly again, never brush past her as she moves around the kitchen, or place a hand on her arm without thinking about it. She will scare all touches away through the fear of what she will see of your soul. She has noticed whenever she clutches the hand of one of her students when they help her around the house that most have taken to wearing gloves, and grasp her clothes-covered forearm instead of her hand. They fear her; it seems there is no one under this roof who has nothing to hide.

 

When she touches her mother, she sees red, she sees panic. She feels the blade across Madison’s throat as if it were her own, yet also feels herself on the other end of the knife, drawing it through fresh skin. It is disorientating, but clear. Flashes of Fiona’s crimes dizzy her. Madison, the suspicion of the next Supreme; the anxiety almost matches her own. She sees her mother in a room of black silk and gossamer, drunk, high, cigarette between her fingers, looking brutal and beautiful. She watches as the scientist falls to the charms of a woman twice his age, watches her mother drain the youth out of him as one would do a piece of fruit as if it were her doing it. She jumps away from her poisonous touch, chest tight, and she wishes it were the first time she had been terrified of the woman who had brought her into this once bright world.

 

From then on, no one touches her voluntarily.

 

\----|--|----

 

When this new witch appears, she is scared. Scared because she could be anyone. She could be the enemy worming their way into Robichaux’s ranks, she could be lying, she could be as twisted and black of soul as everyone else in the cursed Coven. Her accent is foreign; soft and simple, but you get witches from all over the place. Zoe is pleading with her to shelter her, and the girl seems ruffled to say the least, proclaiming attempts on her life, and Cordelia’s pretty certain she mentioned that she lives in a swamp.

 

All the worries ghosting behind unseeing eyes scream all at once. The Coven is under threat, someone threw acid at her, Marie Laveau has already made several attempts to exterminate what few witches remain, witch hunters are everywhere and with the question of the next Supreme hanging palpably in the air, the Coven has never been _less_ stable. This girl could be a threat, and if not, bringing her into the school could put her _under_ threat.

 

Cordelia blindly extends her hand, she has to see, she has to make sure. There is hesitancy, and then calloused, ring-adorned fingers spread across her own immaculate and delicate digits, the stranger’s hand firmly clasping her own, and then it starts.

 

Visions are becoming commonplace, yet they always manage to rip the air from her lungs and overwhelm her with sensory bombardment. The first thing she experiences is the smell of gasoline, then light, angry and aggressive and _bright,_ overpowering. Flames climb up around her and she screams in agony as the flesh melts and scorches off her bones, engulfed by the fire. Flames turn to mud, ashes to seeds, heat to dampness, and she still cannot see. She feels her skin pressing itself back together, undoing the damage, it’s taut and new and relieving, her hair fans out around her in curls and she gasps in the crisp air, a welcome relief to tarnished lungs. She sees swamp and low-hanging trees and languid alligators and humming fireflies. She hears what she identifies as 80s pop rock, rhythms and tunes echoing through healed ears, and cicadas chirping in the bushes. She smells mud and earth and flowers and freshwater. She feels peace.

 

And isolation. Loneliness.

 

And that’s it.

 

She is shocked, not by what she saw, but by what she didn’t see. No secrets, no shame, no regret, no darkness or murder or evil. This girl is pure, almost entirely, completely open and faultless. Nothing lurks in her past or in the dark corners of her mind. The life she has seen was simple but honest. The realisation of this is overwhelming, more than the vision, and she lets the witch’s hand fall from her own, afraid that her less than clean past might taint her.

 

The fire, the smoke, the tingle of life in this girl, it all adds up, and ultimately reveals her before Cordelia’s unseeing eyes.

 

“You’re Misty Day.”

 

\----|--|----

 

“I am so sorry, Delia dear.”

 

“Really, it’s fine. The Second Sight has proved useful, so it isn’t all bad.”

 

“But your sight! Surely nothing can be worth such a sacrifice?”

 

Cordelia raises her cup of tea to her lips, sipping gently. Her other senses are heightened by the need to make up for the lost one, and the rewardingly bland taste soothes her tongue. Myrtle sits opposite her, and Cordelia can _hear_ that piteous look on her face.

 

“No, but it’s irreversible. I must learn to be optimistic, and put my new discovery to good use, seen as my mother certainly isn’t going to protect us.”

 

She hears unidentified movement, and is momentarily startled at fingertips lightly dusting over the rough damaged skin above her cheekbones.

 

“Your beautiful face…” Myrtle murmurs mournfully. One would think that she had been the one to have acid thrown at her.

 

Cordelia says nothing; her beauty was never enough when she had it. Perhaps she’ll be worth more without it.

 

\----|--|----

 

Fingertips trace the fleshy leaves of the plant. The flowers are yet to bloom; it isn’t their season. The surface is smooth, the soil soft and damp, the smell like rain and life, the birds and faint hum of cars in the distance the only sound.

 

She spends more time in the greenhouse blind than she did with her sight, a habit she considers ironic, as it is the most visually beautiful location in the Coven. She feels her throat close up at the colourlessness of her future life. She was never really an overly colourful person, preferring white, black or pastel coloured clothes, and after growing up in the academy with its pristine white walls, it’s unsurprising that she prefers purity as opposed to variety, and yet she’d give anything for a splash in the blackness.

 

“Wild garlic.”

 

She jumps and spins round blindly. It takes her a minute to place the voice and come to the realisation that she isn’t in any immediate danger.

 

“Sorry, I forgot. That was cruel of me.” The voice says. “I didn’t mean to scare ya.”

 

Cordelia shakes her head. “Don’t worry, it takes some getting used to. Even I’m not there yet.” She smiles in what she hopes is the right direction.

 

She feels a hand on her forearm as Misty moves to stand beside her, perhaps to let her know she’s there, and the touch is unafraid, unashamed, honest. The skin on skin contact is so sudden, so casual, so utterly welcome that Cordelia has to fight to stop herself from crying in relief.

 

The girl thinks nothing of it. She stands close so Cordelia can feel her life and magic tingling inches away in a way she’s missed. It seems the newcomer is the only one not terrified of getting too close to her and her invasive new power. She craves contact in a way she didn’t expect, in a way she never has before, just to feel another human being if she can’t see them, but this girl barely knows her, and she barely knows this girl, and frankly she’s still scared.

 

“You must be quite experienced in this area.” She says conversationally. Her ears pick up the sound of hands that aren’t her own rustling through leaves in a caress.

 

“Well, back home it’s just me and the plants so yeah, I have more experience than actual knowledge probably.”

 

Cordelia wonders how old she is. She was burned at the stake only a few months ago, and was not much older than the girls in the academy…just a child…She talks like an adolescent, uncertain and open and _excited_ about the world. The skin of her hands is rough through her lifestyle, but creaseless and dainty; young hands, though yes, experienced. Cordelia is vaguely curious as to what this girl looks like. She _must_ have seen her on a news report or something similar, but honestly can’t recall. She of course has an image in her head; a small, pixie-like creature, with red hair, perhaps freckles, she sees sharp little teeth and a figure draped in shawls and jewellery and long flowing skirts. Of course, she knows this girl is not a little swamp sprite as she pictures; she knows she must be as tall as Cordelia at least, judging on how much of her body she feels nearby, but otherwise she is perfectly happy to let her imagination guide her. She will judge on character, not on appearance, as realistically, this girl is likely to be a bit hectic to look at, living in isolation in a swamp and all.

 

“Do you know what wild garlic does when mixed with daffodil root?”

 

“Nope. Never tried it.”

 

Cordelia reaches blindly forward and plucks a leaf of the plant. The smell has not fully set in yet, but she knows it will be strong by the end of the season, so best to work with it when the scent doesn’t follow you around for the rest of the day.

 

“You gonna show me then?” Misty asks, and it’s eager and excited and a little playful.

 

Cordelia smiles. “I’d love to.”

 

\----|--|----

 

When she enters the kitchen one morning, cane swinging ahead of her, hesitant and careful, she hears the daily chatter of what she guesses is most of the small Coven seated round the breakfast table. She’s struck by how startlingly familial this all is, considering they’re likely all planning each other’s murder. She assumes her mother isn’t present though, which alleviates her paranoia slightly.

 

She fumbles around in the refrigerator; the girls know that she doesn’t like being assisted on mundane everyday tasks, it makes her feel more helpless than she already does. She successfully pours herself some orange juice, and then hears the embarrassing smash as she knocks it off the countertop with her elbow. She stills in resentment as the room goes graveyard silent.

 

She hears footsteps come to her aid, and flushes in shame. A voice she identifies as Madison’s sharp Hollywood drawl echoes over her shoulder.

 

“The protection of the Coven really is in great hands, isn’t it?”

 

It’s sharp and spiteful and a tone she’s entirely too used to, but it stings none the less in a heart that’s never been adequate.

 

There is a strange sound of wind rushing, and then a dull thud from somewhere away to her left. She hears Madison grunt in pain as she hits the wall at the far end of the adjoining room.

 

She doesn’t know who cast the spell, no one says anything, just begin clearing up the broken glass. A set of long, rough fingers grasps her hand and leads her safely out of the proximity of the shards. She is wordlessly guided to the table and the girl makes sure she’s seated before returning to help the others clean the liquid away.

 

Still no one speaks; out of guilt or pity or embarrassment she doesn’t know, but she can’t bring herself to scold them for Madison.

 

It’s later that night, when the blackness around her mirrors that of behind her eyes, that she realises she never expected Misty Day to be strong at telekinesis.

 

\----|--|----

 

Blind days pass with the Coven on unsteady ground and Cordelia even unsteadier. She sits at her desk, ghosting fingers feeling the stack of paperwork grow and grow. Myrtle offers to help, Cordelia nods, but feels uncomfortable. She has reached the limit of her usefulness. She can no longer do even the administration of the Coven, let alone be a valuable member in protecting it.

 

She spends more and more hot afternoons in the greenhouse; her sense of touch and smell are adequate for brewing and concocting, and her memory of the place is vivid. She moves between rows of plants, finding petals and stems and leaves with ease, the silence having the opposite effect that it used to. It is crushing, threatening, it presses on her and reminds her that anyone could creep up on her and there is nothing she can do about it. She doesn’t want Hank poking around either; the last thing she needs is more trouble and heartache.

 

Things start getting better when she discovers the resident swamp witch’s penchant for botany, and the resident swamp witch discovers the availability of the greenhouse.

 

First to go is the silence, thank God. Having someone to talk to is like a breath of fresh air in a stiflingly still situation, and Misty talks freely and happily. She doesn’t dwell on Cordelia’s blindness, nor does she shy away when the topic must be addressed and pretends that she can’t see the sightless eyes and cracking scars. She speaks of her swamp, of the plants surrounding them and the life everywhere, she talks of the Coven and the witches and the strange boy that has joined their school inexplicably. She asks about Cordelia, never enough to touch a tender topic, but just the right amount to give Cordelia an odd sensation of being grilled without being judged, and instead of shying from the invasion, she relishes the idea that someone might be genuinely _interested_ in what she thinks. Misty never talks about herself; well, not _properly,_ not about her past or her deeper experiences, never touching on the crippling loneliness Cordelia saw she feels, and it makes her seem maddeningly unselfish, but also slightly suspicious and gives conversation a strange and foreign feeling. She talks with a dreamy simplicity, like the complexities of the world with which she is intimately familiar are so easily understood that there’s no need for complication. It’s pleasant, however, and Cordelia cherishes the unabashed joy of discovery evident in the Cajun’s voice every time something new comes to life, sometimes quite literally, in Cordelia’s lessons in the greenhouse.

 

She also discovers that once you get Misty Day started on Stevie Nicks, she can go for hours. Cordelia recognised the tune Misty was humming, and brought the artist up. The brief pause between the mention of Stevie Nicks and the sudden tidal wave of appreciation indicated that Misty was seriously considering whether it was a good idea going into a subject she knew she would get trapped in, but Cordelia was there and listening and potentially interested in the swamp witch’s opinion, for the first time in _years,_ and she couldn’t avoid it.

 

The passion in her voice when she talks about her hero is enough to mesmerise Cordelia somewhat. It seems that Misty has an unlimited enthusiasm for life, exploding in sharp bursts of appreciation and wonder, and the headmistress can’t help but think perhaps Stevie Nicks is lucky to be talked about in such a reverent and adoring way by someone like Misty Day.

 

Since then, a silent agreement takes place, and the pressing silence of the greenhouse decreases even further when Cordelia starts to hear the distinct sound of Fleetwood Mac drifting through the foliage when she comes to work. It’s like background music to announce Misty’s presence, and she is rather thankful that there is always something reassuring covering the silence. Stevie Nicks becomes an integral part of their afternoons among the plants, as well as a personal comfort.

 

\----|--|----

 

She feels that every day is just another 24 hours in the waiting game. She tries to make the most of the time; using her Second Sight to attempt to predict the next threat and think out a plan of attack, or in some circumstances, escape. She slowly adjusts to her blindness, seeing it as an inevitable aspect of her, as opposed to a constant impediment. Myrtle says the scars are healing well, Zoe says she doesn’t even notice anymore, Madison rolls her eyes and calls her pathetic, but helps her carefully up the stairs nevertheless. She feels unsettled, but at least she’s merely waiting for the final blow these days, instead of convincing herself she can already feel it happening.

 

She spends most afternoons in the greenhouse, more often than not with Misty. Their relationship has developed into what Cordelia would call a tentative friendship, having known each other for a very brief period of time, but whenever they interact it doesn’t feel tentative in the slightest. Misty is tactile, a trait bred from a lifetime of rejected affection and isolation, and for once Cordelia doesn’t run from touches, realising that she has nothing left to lose, and if she were to trust anyone not to have ulterior motives, it would be someone like Misty Day. It’s simple stuff; hands on shoulders when she peers at what Cordelia is working on from behind her, touches on her back and forearms to let her know Misty is there, brushes of skin as they work around each other. Cordelia cannot see Misty, but she has a distinct feeling that these moments of contact are nothing to the swamp witch; they are delivered with carelessness and casual regularity and Cordelia is certain that Misty is just happy to have someone who will accept her extensive desire for physical contact without comment.

 

Outside of the greenhouse, she comes across Misty about as frequently as the other girls, if not less. She has no idea what the swamp witch gets up to in the academy, but she is either in her room or with one of the other girls, either way she is rarely alone with Cordelia inside the house. The headmistress is perhaps grateful for this; the greenhouse is their oasis, their escape, and is kept poignant and preserved since their relationship is more distant elsewhere.

 

In moments of soft Stevie Nicks and the perfume of plants, she’d perhaps say she’s comfortable, maybe even content. They work well together, her expertise and Misty’s enthusiasm and natural gift complementing each other. She feels momentarily at peace, absorbing herself in something she enjoys and having someone there to talk to, and yet she knows it won’t last. Nothing does.

 

She continues to wait with growing dread.

 

\----|--|----

 

When she opens her eyes she can see.

 

And when she does, she immediately snaps them shut again. She doesn’t remember daylight being that _bright._ She thinks she’s having a hideous and surreal dream, but no, she gathers herself and _sees_ and her bedroom ceiling has never looked so good and since when has _white_ been so colourful? She sobs out of pure joy for a large part of the morning.

 

Until Myrtle tells her, she can’t fathom what could have occurred. She thinks perhaps she has been blessed, or her mother has finally got her act together and used her powers as the Supreme to do something for her only child for once. But no, of course it was Myrtle, who, through all her piety and righteousness, is good and kind and has enough mercy and determination to achieve what Cordelia had given up on. And her hair is as orange as a sunset and eyes like sapphires and the water she hands to her has the rainbow swirling in clear depths and it feels like an eternity since she last saw sunlight flood into her bedroom and get caught in the crystals of the light fitting and the glass of the mirror. She cannot thank Myrtle enough, and to repay her somewhat, does not press further on the origin of her new eyes.

 

She sees herself again, her reflection staring back at her out of mismatched eyes. There is still scarring, but it is healing, and one blue one brown eye looks eclectic in her otherwise pristine appearance, but she’s _just so goddamn thankful._

 

Even with the threats of impending danger and tension surrounding the Coven and the next Supreme, she’s elated, euphoric, dizzyingly exuberant at the return of the world, drinking in the aesthetics of everything around her, at being able to move without assistance, at once more feeling more in control of her life and her academy.

 

It isn’t until she’s giddily reunited with the sight of Zoe and Nan, and a less eager Madison, questions and jokes and _laughter_ thrown around the kitchen, that she remembers the girl who came to their Coven. The stranger whom she has never set eyes on, and the only one who would come within a foot of her when she most needed human contact. Misty’s in the greenhouse, of course, distractedly watering the plants and humming along to Fleetwood Mac. Cordelia calls out to her from around the corner.

 

“Comin’!” She hears back in the accent she’s come to be almost fond of.

 

Misty appears from round the corner, grin plastered across her face, and freezes when she sees Cordelia standing, without her cane, her new eyes _seeing_ her, glittering and functional and _miraculous._ She stands, frozen in shock and disbelief for a moment, before a delighted smile breaks out across her face and she hurries forward to great the headmistress.

 

Cordelia’s taken aback, not necessarily because of Misty’s appearance, simply because of the fact that she _has_ one. The voice has a source, the mind has a body, the magic has a core, and it’s slightly disorientating.

 

She’s nothing like she had imagined her, apart from her sense of style; she’s swathed in layers of thin, billowy fabric, shawls round her shoulders, and draped in jewellery from multiple long necklaces to the thick rings she’s felt multiple times. Aside from her 70s hippy look, she’s nothing like the picture Cordelia had in her blind mind’s eye. She’s not small and dainty, but tall and willowy, with the elegance of a water plant and yet a subtle clumsiness of youth. Her skin’s pale and smooth, confusingly not tanned by the sun at all, and she has a rather sculptured face; all cheekbones and jawline and arched brows, rather than small and pointy features. Her hair is a wild tangle of sun-spun curls, falling over narrow, pale shoulder in a waterfall of disorder, and her blue eyes are lined with black makeup. She looks every inch the swamp witch, and Cordelia wonders how she ever thought she could possibly look different. She feels slightly put out as well; she had been so ready to judge the newcomer on character and compassion alone and look past an appearance she believed she would never see, but with her restored sight, this crumbles, as Misty has an untamed and undeniable beauty that seems entirely natural and almost unjustly easy for someone who evidently couldn’t care less about her own aesthetic appeal.

 

Long arms pull her into an embrace she wasn’t expecting, the smell of damp soil and new leaves flooding her as wild curls tickle her face. She hugs Misty back, grinning to herself at how strangely _real_ this odd girl is. She’d been experiencing such limited aspects of her that putting sight to touch to smell is certainly confusing.

 

“But, how –?”

 

“Myrtle. The woman’s a genius.” Cordelia beams.

 

Misty pulls away to look at her, eyes still disbelieving as they roam Cordelia’s face. She smiles again, and Cordelia is sorry that she’s missed all the smiles that were probably thrown her way when she couldn’t see them.

 

“I’m impressed. Wow, must be weird though?”

 

“It’s a relief. I forgot how beautiful the world is. Even Madison’s scowl looks like the Mona Lisa right now.”

 

Misty laughs and Cordelia wonders how someone can be so utterly _consumed_ with happiness on behalf of another, of someone she barely knows at that. She supposes that Misty is one of those rare people who feel the emotions of others as if they were their own. She pities this for some reason.

 

“Well now you ain’t got no excuse for messin’ the potions up.” She dances off to the other end of the greenhouse to turn up the stereo.

 

“I’ll certainly be of more use now.”

 

\----|--|----

 

“They look weird.” Says Madison.

 

“She thinks so too.” Responds Nan.

 

“I wonder where Myrtle got them from…” Zoe sits across the room, staring out of the window, lost in thought.

 

“Does it matter? Threats get closer every day, I’m just thankful dear Cordy can perhaps be of _some_ use now, since her lovely mother is nowhere to be seen.” Madison’s sense of self-preservation wins out against her curiosity.

 

“You got anything to add, Swampy?”

 

Misty is startled out of a reverie she had been lost in, daydreaming of the golden threads of the life and of re-weaving them, of her swamp and her Stevie and her loneliness, of the tribe she is still looking for, the tribe she might have just found.

 

“I dunno, I’m just glad she can see again, must be terrible, bein’ blind.”

 

Madison, evidently dissatisfied with the answer, continues hypothesising, with Nan’s exasperated sighs and Zoe’s disinterest. Misty sits and listens, then, feeling slightly suffocated by the white walls, slips out of the room, past the front doors and out into the wider world.

 

\----|--|----

 

“How did you survive in secret for this long on your own?”

 

Misty doesn’t stop her hypnotic, floating hand gestures as she weaves in and out of the workbenches.

 

“I got by. I ain’t bothered by the simple life. I had my critters and my little shack, what else would I need?”

 

Cordelia lets out a soft, disbelieving laugh. “I don’t know, food perhaps?”

 

“I grew my own mostly. And I do have some money saved, for backup, ya know?”

 

“Still can’t have been very comfortable without electricity…”

 

“It was all I needed.” Misty says simply, pensively, and it makes the headmistress slightly sad. _It was all I had…_

 

“You know, once this is all over, you’re welcome to go back.”

 

The swamp witch’s head shoots up, blue eyes piercing with something Cordelia can’t recognise, so, being who she is, she naturally backtracks.

 

“I mean, you don’t _have_ to, but you can if you wish. Our doors are always open to you, Misty Day.”

 

She smiles at her name. Cordelia thinks fleetingly that she might embrace her again, but she keeps her distance, not responding in anyway to the offer. Cordelia surprisingly isn’t offended; the soft, wistful smile has communicated everything.

 

Misty goes back to humming, pruning a steadily growing bush with care and precision. Cordelia pauses to observe for a moment, biting her tongue in curiosity, drinking in the image she had lacked when she was blind. She watches as earth-worn hands caress the plant as if it were a tiny mouse, watches as blonde curls fall erratically in front of her stoic face, watches the way the sun bends to encompass her ability and knowledge, watches as she winces almost imperceptibly every time the shears snip off a prong, like it is causing her physical pain yet she is steeling herself against it.

 

Cordelia flushes rather unexpectedly. She can feel a blush rising red in her cheeks, heat gathering in her palms. She feels a little surprised and embarrassed; but on account of what? She has the distinct feeling that she is intruding on something incredibly personal, like walking uninvited into Misty’s bedroom or something. It’s an odd and uncomfortable sensation, and she wonders how this girl, who has barely been there for a week, can look more at home in the greenhouse than Cordelia has ever felt in all the time she’s sought sanctuary within its walls.

 

It’s sights like this that cause her to be evermore thankful for her regained eyes.

 

She moves to stand next to the young witch, gently taking shears out of her hands and resuming the task herself. Misty says nothing, but her smile is smaller and more genuine than Cordelia has ever seen it.

 

\----|--|----

 

“I don’t trust her.”

 

“I don’t care what you think, mother, I’ve seen her story, and it’s all true.”

 

“The past does not dictate the future, Delia.”

 

“You were always the one that said people act out of hindsight, not forethought.”

 

“Well that’s even more dangerous. If they did to me what they did to her, I’d certainly want revenge.”

 

“Yes, well we’re not all like you, mother, and thank heavens for that.”

 

“Cruelty runs in our blood, _all_ of our blood, we’re a sisterhood, we all have our darkness.”

 

“Not her, not even an ounce, she isn’t from this poisonous Coven.”

 

“So why is she here?”

 

“She needed help, and was entirely innocent, burnt at the stake for what she didn’t understand and couldn’t hope to control without the help of her kind.”

 

“Well, I know we’re desperate, but we’re dragging them off the bayou now?”

 

“Under my leadership, this Coven has almost doubled in size. We’re dying out, we need to stick together through this.”

 

“That is the first time you’ve ever tried to prove yourself better than me.”

 

“Fancy that? I _am_ your daughter after all.”

 

\----|--|----

 

When night descends she watches stars prick from behind threatless clouds and the house of fear and family gleams like a sterilised pearl in the dark. She drinks in the glow of the moon, the security of the enclosed feeling she has inexplicably gained this night. As she bids Misty good night, she receives merely a smile and a minimal response in dismissal.

 

She understands. She knows how one can feel trapped and yet isolated all at once. She knows that the swamp would have felt like a suffocating emptiness to one who understood so little of herself.

 

She nods and heads back into the academy.

 

As the lights of her bedroom are turned out and candles flare into life with a careless flick of her wrist, she cannot fight the impulse to glance out of the window. A curtain of religion-straight hair glows luminescent in the darkness, a silk nightgown adding to her pale, ghostly aura, as she stands and observes the sanctuary of the garden.

 

A gliding spirit of shawls and sunlight makes its way down to the trees at the end of the garden. When her head tilts up to observe the sky from under the canopy of oak branches, golden curls spill down to the bottom of shoulder blades. She approaches a tree and places a white hand against its trunk, and Cordelia feels her breath hitch as the leaves and branches illuminate with the yellow glow of hundreds of fireflies. The hand strokes the bark as if it were a friend, and retracts as the figure stands back to bathe in the serenity of the night’s moment.

 

That is magic, Cordelia thinks from her window. That is _true_ magic, not anger and fire and blood and death, that’s _power_ , no, _real_ magic is the kind that causes the heart to flutter and the eyes to widen in disbelief. Magic is the lost gift of the lucky few that are touched by the ability to defy and define nature as they please. Magic is all the beauty and brilliance of the world condensed into an action, a thought, a person. It is the wonder and discovery and _love_ of the world that bore them all, and it manifests itself in the oddest of places.

 

Misty holds out her arms slightly, and the lights take flight, flitting from the tree to hover in the air around the swamp witch’s ethereal silhouette. Cordelia feels her throat close up on account of a woman, of a _girl_ , she barely knows, but can’t help it as the fireflies dance around her snowy skin. Her gift is light and life, it’s beautiful and pure and limitless and incomprehensible and Cordelia feels tears threaten her stoic visage as she remembers that this girl was burned alive by the people she was supposed to trust, by people who she might have loved, who were simply terrified of what they couldn’t explain. The thought of all that raw, _beautiful_ ability going up in flames makes her hate the ignorant as Misty never would. The girl never asked for any of this, but she realized she had no choice, and has evidently accepted herself when no one else did, and has flourished in her abilities. Cordelia envies her strength and optimism.

 

She casts a sad smile at the none-the-wiser witch in the garden and pulls her drapes shut against the soft night.

 

\----|--|----

 

She knows she is weak. She knows that even with her sight back, she is still of little use to the Coven, and potentially a burden. She sobs into silk sheets one night, her feeble heart breaking despite the fact that no one, not even its owner, mourns it. She lets her self-loathing and weakness soak her pillow and wrack her shoulders. She cries for the love she had felt for years, for a man she thought might heal her, might actually see her as anything other than the disappointing daughter of the worst Supreme in witchcraft history. She cries for the betrayal occurring under her own roof, the darkness seeping out of virgin-white walls. She cries for her mother and what she has become, over the monster that grew with ambition and jealousy. She cries for her sisterhood being tortured and burned and supressed everywhere with nothing she can do to help.

 

She cries out of fear of the future in a house where everybody else sleeps.

 

\----|--|----

 

“It ain’t impossible, I told ya. Now, concentrate, and you’ll do it fine.”

 

“Misty, you can’t just create life, it goes against everything we know of the world.”

 

“We ain’t _creatin’_ life, we’re just…igniting it. Don’t worry, I’ve done this before.”

 

“Yes, well you have a gift, I do not.”

 

“Nah, it’s easy. People don’t try it ‘cause they don’t think it’s possible.”

 

Misty waters the soil, dampening it sufficiently before taking a seed and burying it in the centre, fingers moving through the compost like it were fur on a pet.

 

“Now, there’s already ghosts of life around it, you just gotta latch on to it and will it, and a new plant’ll grow, I promise.”

 

“But…there’s nothing there to go on, no shoot, not roots, no nothing.”

 

“Yeah, well like I said, you gotta will it. It ain’t gonna be easy first time, but you’ll get it, you just need a push to try it.”

 

Misty rinses off her hands in the sink, dries them on her skirt and returns to Cordelia’s side, standing before the plant pot on the bench.

 

“I hope that one day I’ll be able to create simple life outta nothin’, but of course that’s more tricky.”

 

“If you ever succeed in that we’re going to have to call a summit meeting, because let alone Supreme, you’ll be considered a _god_.”

 

Misty laughs lightly. “I sure as hell ain’t the only one with this power, I’m certain of it.”

 

Cordelia doesn’t add that she’s never come across a case as strong as Misty Day in the field of resurgence and vitalum vitalis.

 

“Look, you’re gonna nail it.” She places Cordelia’s hand on the soil covering the seed with all the precision of an artist.

 

“Focus.”

 

She tries, narrowing her eyes at the plant pot. Breathe in, breathe out, calm, focus.

 

“Can you feel it?”

 

She thinks perhaps she can, a slight tremor, a twitch, a tingle, under the soil. She focuses harder, closing off her five primary senses and relying on her sixth, grasping the tiny thread of life that echoes in the husk of the seed, a ghost, as Misty said. But it’s barely there, a sigh, an absence. She tries to force her mind to grasp it, to nurture it, but it’s like trying to hold smoke, slipping away, dissipating, but still eerily present. How is she ever going to coax it into life?

 

“Misty it’s – it’s so small…I can’t –“

 

“Let it flow through you. Make a connection. Here.” A warm hand is suddenly there and resting on Cordelia’s chest, directly over her heart. Her eyes snap away from the plant pot and onto Misty’s, losing the thread almost instantly.

 

“No,” Misty shakes her head, looking entirely unfazed. “Focus.”

 

Cordelia looks back at the soil and searches for the ghost again. A strange kind of pull flows from Misty’s hand to her heart, flitting down her arm and whispering through her hand and into the soil. It’s slightly terrifying and her chest feels tight and she struggles to breathe for a moment. Her body reacts to magic that isn’t her own, magic that’s using her as a channel.

 

“Focus. Breathe. I’m helpin’.” Misty murmurs quietly.

 

Cordelia tries to obey, tries to intertwine the echo thread of life in the compost to the tingling threads flowing from Misty’s hand, through her heart and into her own hand, but it’s difficult, like the two don’t match. She closes her eyes, shutting off the sense she treasures the most, letting the warmth guide her, so vivacious it’s almost burning her from the inside out now. Goosebumps rise over the pale skin of her arms, the tingling becomes a fizzing, the magic causing her to physically tremble slightly.

 

“I can’t – they won’t –“

 

“Come on. Will it. You can do it.” Misty breathes from closer than Cordelia expects.

 

Cordelia breathes in heavily, gasping as her heart thuds out more and more power and her hand begins to itch and shake atop the soil, searching blindly in the darkness behind eyelids for that spark of life that she can latch on to and force into this world. This must be impossible, she thinks, it’s like trying to catch a firefly in a maze. She grits her teeth and _pushes_ and _clutches_ at the thread, _forcing_ it into her mind’s grasp.

 

A hand gently pulls her chin up, directing her face away from the pot and towards the other woman. “You’re gonna smash it to pieces if you keep that up. Don’t look, _feel._ Feel the life.”

 

Cordelia gasps in a shaky breath, _further and further, closer and closer,_ it’s there, out of reach, she lunges, and misses, the ghost slipping away once more. It’s exhausting, she’s dizzy, her eyes are closed, she feels nothing but the damp soil heating up significantly under her palm, the magic gushing through her veins, the insistent press of the swamp witch’s hand on her chest, the spark of her and the reluctance of the seed.

 

The heat of Misty’s hand increases and it knocks the air out of Cordelia’s lungs, she feels the magic crackling, _begging_ for an outlet, she thinks she must be about to explode, she’s trembling, eyes screwed shut, hand digging into the soil, grasping desperately at the thread, _forcing_ a connection.

 

The hand on her chest slides up her neck to her jaw, still _radiating_ this strange and foreign heat, and Cordelia would perhaps question it if she weren’t exhausted by the pure _energy_ required to simply keep sight of the thread of the seed. Lips come out of nowhere, soft and unexpected and _tingling_ like the rest of Cordelia. There’s no awkward hesitance, Misty kisses insistently and wholeheartedly, and Cordelia would evaluate this _bizarre_ turn of events if it weren’t for the thread _finally_ twisting with the sheer tidal wave of energy surging through her veins and into the soil. They entangle and ignite, and she coaxes the thread into life, it glows and hums and solidifies and Misty kisses her harder, her lips _burning_ and Cordelia gasps against her mouth at the onslaught of her senses. She reciprocates without thinking, matching Misty’s passion, and one person was not built to channel so much life, she’s terrified and euphoric and struggling to breathe, but opens her mouth against the swamp witch’s and – wow – she wishes she had retained _some_ self-control.

 

She feels something pushing its way up out of the soil under her hand, but barely gives it a thought as she the sensations course through her and she still feels on the verge of exploding and the goosebumps are back with a vengeance and she can’t remember the last time she was kissed like this, perhaps never, like she’s too unbelievable not to be kissed, like seeing the sun for the first time after her eyesight was restored. Maybe it’s a female thing. Her thoughts are a myriad of confused shouting and colour and light and life and she feels smooth fresh shoots push through her fingers and Misty’s hand slides into her hair and pulls her closer, lips unrelenting and she thinks her chest is going to burst.

 

Then suddenly the lips are gone and the hand is gone and she gasps in a breath as all contact ceases and suddenly she’s on her own again. Her eyes snap open and she’s panting with the effort of remaining upright. She looks from Misty’s eerily cool exterior, to the plant pot where her hand is still firmly planted, only lost in a tangle of shoots that have crept between her fingers and up into the air, flowering out into soft pink petals at the ends; a plant she had just created from virtually nothing.

 

Misty grins widely and there isn’t a trace of embarrassment in her face. “See! Told ya!”

 

Cordelia plans to remind her that it was Misty’s push that enabled her to do it, but the words catch in her throat, chest still heaving, as she glances between the young witch and the plant in amazement and confusion.

 

“You might wanna lie down, it usually takes it out of you, in my experience anyway. I told ya you could do it!” She says happily, before squeezing Cordelia’s arm and skipping out of the greenhouse and into the academy.

 

Cordelia remains there, leaning heavily against the workbench, hand covered in soil, lips tingling wonderfully and staring in bemusement at the beautiful, _alive_ flower.

 

\----|--|----

 

“You ok, Delia?”

 

“Hmm? Yeah, I’m fine.”

 

“You seem kinda off.”

 

“No, I was just thinking.”

 

“Oh. Good, because Madison and Fiona are threatening each other with bread knives and fire again.”

 

“ _Crap,_ this Coven is insane…”

 

“Hey, I’m doing ok!”

 

“You brought home an undead frat boy. You’re top of the high risk list.”

 

“What about Misty? She keeps talking about how much she misses her alligators! At least Kyle isn’t going to try to eat you every time you go for a bath.”

 

“No, I’m not worried about Misty. She knows it would be too cruel to bring an innocent creature into this academy.”

 

\----|--|----

 

Cordelia has over analysed her entire life, hence she has a difficult time trying to slip back into the easy routine of the greenhouse and Stevie and Misty.

 

Misty does not. There is not an ounce of awkwardness in the girl, all vibrant and friendly and tactile as ever, and it isn’t like she pretends that nothing has happened. No, she brings it up on _several_ occasions. She gushes about Cordelia’s ability and the way that in the end it had been her not Misty who had caused the flower to grow. Cordelia always falters slightly when conversation takes this turn, but she quickly realizes that Misty saw the kiss as a magical transaction, an educational experience and nothing more, and because of this, Cordelia decides to do likewise.

 

Fiona thinks Misty is the next Supreme. She could be, Cordelia decides. She has power like Cordelia has rarely seen. It’s breath taking in its strength, but not in the raw and aggressive way of previous Supremes. Her mother, in a rare moment of kindness, makes Misty’s dream come true, and Cordelia sits listening to the 80’s white witch diva that is Stevie Nicks give Misty a personal rendition of “Rhiannon”, and the girl has stars in her eyes and disbelief on her tongue and she sits beside her idol, motionless, adoring, and Cordelia finds it both touching and amusing. She is proud that Misty remains appreciative without being invasive, praising and conversing with applaudable restraint, and Cordelia can see the lonely young swamp dweller in her bursting, _begging_ to be released and to flood Stevie with gratitude and adoration.

 

She’s given a shawl and Cordelia reckons it will never leave her shoulders, she’s hugging Stevie with such happiness and wonderment that the headmistress casts a glance at her mother, who watches with similar placidity and appreciation, and realises that she is grateful for something her mother has done for once, because look at the pure joy she’s caused in one who really does deserve it after everything she’s experienced in her few years.

 

And Misty spends as much time as possible with Stevie Nicks, not crushing or overwhelming, in fact after the initial tidal wave she has her emotions under control, simply talking and laughing with the woman who has been her anchor for so many years. Madison makes a request for Eminem, and Fiona bats it away, evidently deeming the movie star no longer a potential Supreme.

 

No, Fiona thinks she has found the witch who will take her place.

 

Cordelia isn’t quite as certain, but she can’t think of anyone who would want the position less, or anyone who would do a better job.

 

\----|--|----

 

And then she goes missing.

 

Granted, she may have just floated off back to her swamp, but after the desperate search to belong somewhere, Cordelia is doubtful. There are other problems; bigger problems. Marie Laveau resides among them, Hank is a murderer and a witch hunter and dead and Cordelia is a fool. Her mother’s terminal illness is put on hold as she allies with the voodoo queen to take down Hank’s family company. Nan is dead, Queenie was dead, then alive and among them again, and there is a palpable tension betwixt Madison and Zoe that appears to be heavily related to Kyle, and could set off an explosion any day now. The Coven is in disarray, and Cordelia feels useless and clueless.

 

She has to do something, _anything_ that will benefit the Coven in some way. Her second sight left when her primary sight returned and she is actively avoiding her mother, wanting to help but being dismissed as an idiot for falling in love. It seems anything positive is too good to be true.

 

Misty. She has to find Misty. That’s a good place to start. She needs to keep the Coven at close ranks, keep them together. She realises that after the allegiance with Maria Laveau and the upcoming termination of the witch hunters, the greatest threat now is from within, hiding in plain sight, as her mother had said. Bringing everyone closer and closer together could set it all off, as questions of the next Supreme get louder and louder. However, she decides that sticking together might _discourage_ any rash actions between the girls who are not quite friends.

 

She has no idea where to start.

 

\----|--|----

 

She can’t remember if it hurt more with acid or by her own hands.

 

Both times she had thought that nothing could ever be more painful than what she was experiencing, but the second time she loses her sight, it’s self-inflicted.

 

She feels blood trickling past her fingers as she howls into her hands. She rubs the mixture she created to stop infection over the damaged area and she’s sobbing and shrieking and she can’t see anything and it’s done, it’s over, she is blind again. What’s left of her eyes feels unnatural and mangled and she is cruelly proud of herself for finally being brave and going through with it.

 

When she touches Madison later, she sees nothing.

 

She feels hot skin and what she thinks might be a panic-elevated pulse thudding beneath, but nothing else. She’s still blind. Blind to the world and to truth. It was all for nothing.

 

\----|--|----

 

_Where are you? Tell me where you are._

The scent of summer flowers and hot afternoons and freshly watered soil fills her nose and she breathes in deeper, absorbing each tendril of personality from the shawl. She can see her, a blurred outline, a shadow, a whisper, but she is there, singing softly and sadly to herself. Cordelia can only see the outline of a familiar profile, darkness, and the heart-breaking singing of Stevie Nicks in a voice softer and younger and sweeter.

 

She’s alive, she’s trapped, and that’s all Cordelia knows. Finding Misty would be the first step to getting the Coven back into some sort of normalcy. An enclosed space isn’t enough to go on though.

 

The prick of her finger, the sting and the blood that soothes it, the sensation drags her closer. She lets Misty’s earring fall from her hand as blood drips onto the floor below where she is kneeling and a vision swims before her once more.

 

_There. I’m coming. I’ll find you._

\----|--|----

 

There is infinite relief as she feels familiar arms wrap round her once more, crushing her to a thin, willowy body with a palpable desperation for reassurance. Queenie had done well, but only half the job. Misty had been on the brink of death, but not yet there, she kept herself alive, channelled her own resurgence energy.

 

Cordelia doesn’t intervene as Misty launches herself at Madison and beats the _shit_ out of her, and she really wishes she still had her sight, because it’s something she has wanted to see for a long time now. Kyle drags them apart before any serious damage can be caused, Misty still fuming and swiping and Madison with her metaphorical tail between her legs.

 

Cordelia can’t help but break the unspoken agreement concerning time spent together being really just in the greenhouse. She is dependent again, blind again, and Misty doesn’t have any complaints about helping her. She seems to want simply to reassert that she is alive and attempt to repay her saviour in whatever way she can. Cordelia wants simply to reassert that Misty is _here_ and she’s _safe_ and she has seriously got to be more careful with her students.

 

The swamp witch leads her carefully to her office, sits her down and makes sure her cane is within reach. Cordelia is hesitant at first, but soon slips into instructing Misty on what to put where and what to sort into which pile and what paperwork needs signing and what needs shredding. Mundane office tasks, but it rekindles a sense of normalcy.

 

Cordelia is explaining a section of her filing system when she senses that she has lost her audience. She feels Misty’s presence beside her, and then a calloused fingertip finds her cheek, tracing feather-light touches over the angry red skin around mauled eyes.

 

“It’s gotta hurt somethin’ awful.” Misty murmurs. She is close, Cordelia feels, her face level with her own.

 

“It was necessary. My Second Sight helped the Coven more than my primary sight did.”

 

Misty makes no comment on this, but a single fingertip turns into both hands, gently holding Cordelia’s face, thumbs brushing under her cheekbones. Cordelia remains still and strangely calm. She reckons there is little left to be ashamed of.

 

She feels Misty’s skin warm up against her own, and the dull, throbbing pain in her eyes lessens considerably, transmuting into a background ache. Finger trace damaged skin softly for a moment before withdrawing.

 

“Thank you.” Cordelia says, and her voice comes out breathier than she had anticipated, and she convinces herself it’s just from disbelief at this ability she never knew Misty possessed.

 

“It’s the least I can do. I thought I was gonna spend eternity in that box, I was certain of it. And I would’ve. No one cares about me enough to actually come lookin’ for me, just you, Miss Cordelia, and that’s strange for me.” She feels her move closer, a hand covering her own on the armrest of her chair, she neither stiffens nor relaxes. “I can’t thank you enough, but I’m gonna try. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

 

Cordelia finds an unexpected smile tugging at her lips. “You’re alive, you’re back with your fellow witches where you belong, you’re ok, and that’s all I need, Misty. You don’t have to thank me, I’d do it again, any decent person would.”

 

The pause that follows implies that Misty’s thinking how to phrase what she wants to say next, but ultimately fails, moving away and continuing the organising she’d been doing on behalf of the headmistress, humming contently to herself.

 

\----|--|----

 

She isn’t certain if her Second Sight has returned or not.

 

She sees truth in fragmentations, in glimmering mirages that come and go. Dreams are an issue; she doesn’t sleep much at all due to the constant _noise_ in her head when she does.

 

She sees beautiful and horrible things. Things she knows cannot be prophetic, but things that are disconcerting none the less. She sees Hank coming back to finish off what he started, experiences him murdering her Coven and making her watch before he puts a bullet in her head. She sees Fiona taking a child from its mother and offering it to a voodoo spirit, but she also sees her mother bringing a stillborn back to life, tears streaming from vacant eyes, the joyous disbelief of the mother who thought she was not a mother, as Cordelia’s mother walks away, not even casting a glance back at the wonderful gift she has bestowed. She sees Madison killing her stage manager, and sees her being battered by the press on all sides, she feels the trepidation the movie star did when she walked up the path towards Robichaux’s for the first time. She sees a bizarre sequence involving Zoe, Kyle _and_ Madison, sharing him like a toy, secretly fighting for affection, bickering constantly, then forgetting everything when they tangle together, Kyle blending momentarily into the background. She feels the boy’s frustration at being trapped inside his own mind, not remembering who he is, unable to express his torment. She sees Misty and her swamp shack and feels her society’s betrayal like a knife in her back, the rope is coarse and the fire is scorching. She sees Misty gazing longingly out of her bedroom window at the moon hanging over the academy, sees her trying to bake a cake for the first time with mixed results, sees her sobbing pitifully over a tiny mouse she had killed by accident, mourning before breathing life back into it. She sees her spinning Cordelia round the academy; through the greenhouse and empty halls and out into the garden, the warming sound of Fleetwood Mac serenading them in their dance, Misty pulling her closer and closer, herself going willingly, twisting a blonde curl round her finger in curiosity, Misty’s mouth falling to her neck, the sensation of soft lips and a warm tongue against her throat as they sway gently together. She sees Nan painting a scene from one of her books, Nan and Queenie playing cards, a game that turns into a bloodbath, she sees Queenie leading Marie Laveau to their doorstep, only to have them both hang themselves over the porch. The images are tangled and she thinks some are probably true, some are the result of paranoia, and some of her active imagination, perhaps mundane everyday observations of the past being twisted and distorted into something grotesque.

 

Either way, the blackness of consciousness is more comforting.

 

\----|--|----

 

So much happens in so little time.

 

Nan is still dead. Queenie is not so dead. Misty is back. Kyle and Zoe are back. Fiona is dead. Marie Laveau is dead. And the Supreme must arise.

 

The Seven Wonders are approaching with the sunrise and she never thought she could feel so much trepidation for a single event.

 

She cannot sleep; of course not. Her mother is dead. The thought brings her peace; a sick and twisted and cruel peace. The weight has been lifted, the crippling resentment and expectations gone forever. The scars left by her mother’s tactless and frankly _heartless_ abuse will never leave, however. She will carry her mother’s disappointment with her until her death.

 

The Coven has changed so much within the past few months, the most hectic of Cordelia’s short life. First it almost doubled in size, and now it is small once more. There have been numerous deaths, numerous resurrections, several betrayals, heartbreaks, surprises, agonies, happy moments, fearful moments; she doesn’t think a single group of people has ever lived so much within such a short space of time.

 

She sits in bed. She would read but she cannot. She would work but she physically cannot. She can barely turn the light off, and really, what’s the point anyway? It wouldn’t make a difference to her. The twisting nausea in her stomach is worsened by her lack of sight. She can barely sit still through nerves and anticipation of the morning that creeps ever closer.

 

She’s so anxious she doesn’t fully register the knock on the door, nor the hesitant entrance of a figure after they receive no conformation or denial from the headmistress. It isn’t until footsteps approach considerably closer that she drags herself out of haunted thoughts.

 

“Miss Cordelia? It’s me.”

 

A sad smile graces her lips. Of course, why should she be nervous? She is in no danger. If she is this bad, she can’t imagine how gnawing it must be for the girls.

 

She offers a small nod and feels the mattress sink under Misty’s weight next to her. She says nothing, her relationship with the young swamp witch is undefined and she’d like to keep it that way. She would consider them friends, and she’s never really had friends, then again Misty probably hasn’t either. It is an odd companionship though, they can go from icy acquaintances to overly amiable touches and exclamations in seconds, and it’s more than a little confusing, but rather wonderful. She knows Misty would not even consider trying to pigeonhole their friendship, she probably just takes it as it comes and accepts it fully for what it has become, but Cordelia has always been formulaic and she can’t help but analyse her reactions to the girl, and their fluctuating, confusing and occasionally inappropriate nature.

 

Ring-adorned fingers entwine with her own, and she simply holds Misty’s hand and says nothing still, offering silent support, as that’s all the use she is going to be right now.

 

“Miss Cordelia, I’m scared.” The statement sounds like a plea; a terrified, understated plea for help or salvation or understanding. It creeps past rose petal lips in a restrained and uncertain tone that is unusual for the girl, and it wrenches at Cordelia’s stomach and twists an area in her that is worryingly close to her heart. “I’m scared as hell and don’t know what to do.”

 

She holds Misty’s hand tighter, tugging her arm closer to her, realising, since Hank’s death, just how much she has _missed_ intimate human contact, and something as simple as another’s fingers entwined with hers fills a hole in her…maybe not fills, but soothes anyhow.

 

“I ain’t the Supreme, I know it. I ain’t cut out for leadership. I ain’t strong enough to get through this, and I’m so scared, ‘cause I have a bad feeling I ain’t gonna make it out the other side.”

 

There’s a tremble in her voice, Cajun accent so soft and humble and hypnotising. She leans into Cordelia slightly.

 

“Misty, I don’t want to hear such negative thoughts.” Cordelia begins carefully. “Not from you. You’re the only girl who isn’t _begging_ to be allowed to attempt the Seven Wonders, the only girl who isn’t using foul play and _sabotage_ to get what she wants, because you don’t want it. You don’t want to lead because you’re scared you will damage the Coven, an attitude that would be extremely beneficial in a leader; to sacrifice glory for the sake of your sisters. That’s leadership, Misty. That’s the compassion this Coven so desperately needs.”

 

She feels Misty’s hair tickle her bare forearm as the swamp witch shakes her head. “I’m weak. I couldn’t protect ‘em like they deserve to be protected. I couldn’t’ hurt a fly without healin’ it, let alone wage war to keep my Coven safe. I ain’t even got all the skills mastered. It feels like I’m walkin’ to my doom, Miss Cordelia.”

 

Cordelia shifts towards her, initiating her pep-talk mode. She knows she shouldn’t have a preference; they’re all her girls, all under her protection, but she can’t help that she’s rooting for Misty, of course she is, the girl _is_ light and hope and a warm heart is what the Coven needs.

 

“You are not defenceless, Misty. You can take care of yourself, as you so graciously demonstrated on Madison.” She supresses a smirk at the memory, still regretting that she didn’t actually _see_ it. “You’re tough, a survivor. You healed yourself and brought yourself back after being _burnt at the stake._ That is the most incredible thing I’ve ever heard. You have _amazing_ power, and yes it needs some polishing, but it’s _there,_ inside you, growing everyday. You survived on your own when the world was against you and you were completely alone. Well you aren’t alone anymore, Misty. You have a family now, a tribe, despite how dysfunctional it is. And I don’t care what the other girls think they can pull on you, they can’t, because I won’t let them. I’m not going to let anything happen to you. I made a promise when you sought safety here, and I intend to keep it. I will stand by your side through the Seven Wonders, and indeed if you ascend to be the Supreme. I’m not going anywhere, I’m not turning my back, I’m not turning against you. I’m here. And I believe in you and your abilities.” She squeezes her hand tighter, turning her face away from the swamp witch beside her. “You shine, Misty Day, and your light is enough to blind everyone else in this goddamn sick world, just as it has me.”

 

Misty’s thumb brushes methodically over the back of Cordelia’s hand, and she feels the girl shift closer, and wishes she could just _see_ her expression, see if she’s done something right.

 

The hand leaves her own, only to slide up to her bare shoulder. Misty pulls herself against her, the front of Misty’s body pressed against the side of Cordelia’s. She feels her head rest on her shoulder, breath against her throat as Misty nuzzles into her neck slightly, forehead against Cordelia’s jaw. She accepts the contact completely, turning her face to brush her lips against the top of the girl’s head, inhaling her unique, floral smell that reminds her of the greenhouse and Stevie Nicks and the desperate search to find her after she went missing.

 

They don’t say anything, Cordelia hopes she has said enough, said the _right_ thing. She turns on her side slightly to face Misty better and, God, she’d give anything for her sight back now, to look upon golden curls and endless, enigmatic eyes lined with more kohl than perhaps necessary. This is definitely inappropriate, she thinks, the girl is basically a student, practically one of her girls, and so young and so innocent seeming, but cannot bring herself to care even a little bit. It feels horribly final, like a goodbye, waving off the enchanting swamp witch she barely knows into the big, scary, unknown world of death and revenge. Her hand slips across to hold a fistful of Misty’s skirt, anchoring herself to something solid. Hands have drifted up her neck to cradle her face in a reiteration of the occurrence in her office, and they trace the headmistress’ cheekbones and jawline and nose and the curve under her lips, like the very structure of her face fascinates the younger witch.

 

“I hate what you did to yourself…” Misty murmurs, her voice is husky and quiet, like she’s worried of shattering whatever it is that is happening.

 

“I had to.” Cordelia whispers back, feeling rather self-conscious all of a sudden behind unseeing eyes that must be anything but pretty. _I had to find you._

 

She feels the swamp witch press a compulsive kiss to her forehead, just above the bridge of her nose, and she exhales shakily.

 

“You ain’t worthless, Miss Cordelia.” Misty says so quietly she may as well have mouthed it. “I know you think you are, but Fiona don’t know shit. You’re the only one here worth more than I could ever give.” Her voice is heavy with what Cordelia thinks must be staved-off tears. It wavers with her next statement; “And I never thought I’d have a home…”

 

And she thinks her heart breaks a little for this witch and her beautiful gift and beautiful face and beautiful soul, the witch whose situation was even worse than Cordelia’s, who was left by everyone she knew, murdered and abandoned and shamed, and who dragged herself back up out of the ashes and started again. And it just made her kinder.

 

When Misty presses another desperate kiss to her cheek, she thinks she is probably to blame for turning her face in an invitation. Misty takes initiative and she feels lips against hers, softly, quickly, not cautious, just restrained and simple and mournful. Lips repeatedly brush over her own, never lingering too long, not fully committing, in a manner that is brutally innocent and almost impolite in its politeness. Cordelia wants to pull her closer, to kiss her until she’s exhausted, to bite her lip and tangle their tongues and forget that they’re going to have to face reality and morning at some point. But Misty’s scared, and either completely sure of what she’s doing or not sure at all, and Cordelia doesn’t know what’s happening or what she’s feeling, just that Misty lingers slightly longer and kisses slightly harder and Cordelia is bemused by her self-restraint at this point. She lets the girl’s earthy scent and soft skin placate her, relaxes under her touch, and she can feel Misty’s lips pull away then hover _millimetres_ away from her own, foreheads touching, noses brushing, and she’s self conscious of her eyes and _God she doesn’t want anything to happen to this girl_ and she doesn’t know how any of this happened.

 

“Misty…” The girl leans down and rests her head against Cordelia’s chest, tucked under her chin. The headmistress has the impression that she is listening to her heartbeat, and hopes that she can’t tell just how erratic it is at the moment.

 

“You ain’t gotta worry about what it looks like. I can’t see nothin’ but the goodness in your soul.” She wonders if Misty can see her thoughts through a recently developed ability, or if she’s just perceptive and Cordelia is just obvious. “I’m gonna try, Miss Cordelia, really try. And then your sacrifice won’t be for nothin’.”

 

“I’d do it a hundred times over.” She manages, and the connotations are blindingly obvious. _If it meant I got you back._

She wraps weary arms around the swamp witch and pulls her closer, relishing in the contact she assures herself is simply due to a severe lack of it in the past few months/years/her whole life, but she has a suspicion it is _this_ contact that she doesn’t want to part with just yet.

 

Misty’s lips press gently against her pulse point and she tells herself that she will _absolutely not_ start blubbering or gushing or trembling through fear or regret or heartbreak or loneliness or _anything_ else. She’ll be brave, be the headmistress Misty, and indeed all her girls, deserve. She’ll stay strong and unmoving, helping them through this, but not interfering. She’ll be the rock she’s always tried to be.

 

She hopes that will be enough.

 

\----|--|----

 

_Sequere lucem…_

_Venite ad me…_

_Please_

_Follow my voice…_

_We’re all waiting for you…_

_Please_

_Come back to me…_

_Misty…_

_Sequere lucem…_

_Venite ad me…_

\----|--|----

She believes she knew from the moment the words were uttered.

 

The hollow cavern inside her chest became suddenly a lot more claustrophobic and, though remaining unmoved externally, she knew something was amiss. She clutched her cane tighter, hearing four _distinctly_ different voices chant the same Latin, felt Myrtle guide her to her seat, and sat still, doing nothing, on the sidelines, not even able to _spectate._ She doesn’t think she would have wanted to anyway.

 

This dread is the most horrific mix of positive and negative emotions. She feels worry, anxiety, fear but also hope, which is deadlier than the other three put together. Her stomach turns and twists, her heart thudding and she can’t explain why. A bad feeling. _Bad vibes._ She cannot describe it.

 

Yet, she knows _something_ is wrong.

 

It is fitting, she supposes. If it was going to happen any other way, it would not be quite so poignant, nor would it be as effective. It takes an ultimatum, a terrific feat of willingness to look one’s ghosts straight in the eye to escape, to claim her. And there is a certain poetry it.

 

She disregarded Myrtle’s instructions hours ago. It has been hours, she thinks, it must have been. The others are back and shaken and jumpy, all playing it off as nothing yet all trembling and terrified at what may wait for them when their time inevitably comes. They disperse, dealing with it in their own way. She cannot be certain who has stayed, the silence is empty and emotionless.

 

The worry in her gut has transmuted to genuine fear when all returned but her. She refused to move, remaining firmly seated; a silent and entirely useless sentinel. The night wore on, shadows shifted in front of unseeing eyes until she couldn’t take it anymore. Sun-up got closer and closer and she got weaker and weaker.

 

She asked for no help, asked for nothing, made no comment, simply slid to her knees and crawled across the cold carpet until hands reached softness in the rigidity. The fabric held a memory, sparse and unclear, fragments of blue eyes and green stems. She clung to it as she reached forward, feeling her way across the stationary form, growing ever colder. Her fingers ghosted down the dip of a neck, and up to slip across stoic features, lips cold, eyes closed. She shifted closer, touching skin, seeking a spirit to hint, a soul to rekindle.

 

_We have to help her…_

 

That was hours ago. Since then she’d thrown away her mask and abandoned the delusion that this witch was another student. She’d lifted her head into her lap, running fingers through tangled curls and _wishing and wishing_ that she could see.

 

And hours creep on and she doesn’t return. Her body doesn’t shoot back into action. Her eyes don’t snap open. She doesn’t even stir. Cordelia’s heart is locked in a vice, and she’s afraid that one false shift in any direction could crush it beyond repair. _Not like this, not there, not forever. Please, it isn’t fair, I should’ve – If I’d just –._

Her muscles seize up and her throat closes in on itself and she can hear murmuring behind her in the hallway but doesn’t _care_ enough to wonder what it’s saying. Her grip gets more desperate, hands holding the young – _so young –_ witch’s face, stroking over arms and tangling firmly in wild hair. She had promised. She had promised that it would be alright and that she would be there and she would never let anything happen to her, never let her be alone again. But she _is_ alone, alone in that massive world of unknown and eternal torment, alone because Fiona neglected _once again_ what was her duty and had not identified her successor, alone because Cordelia had let this happen. Well she won’t let it continue. There must be very little time left now, and she isn’t about to let the swamp witch die on her.

 

She pulls Misty into her arms and encloses her in her grip, keeping her close and safe and where she belongs. She whispers incantations, whatever she can think of, attempting to get through to her. Sand slips and time passes and nothing happens and she’s chanting more forcefully now and _when exactly_ did she start crying? She doesn’t know, but a steady stream of tears slip from ruined eyes down her cheeks and fall onto the prone form in her arms and she _can’t stop,_ losing control all over again. She’s _begging_ into Misty’s hair now, _pleading_ with her to return, to fight, to keep fighting even though she’s been doing it for so long and exhaustion is no doubt weighing her down.

She remembers how tactile the girl is, this never ending longing for human contact, for a simple brush of skin, _anything_ that indicates that someone is there. She remembers hands taking hers with only momentary hesitation when they first met, the unusual intimacy of hand holding in the greenhouse that Cordelia accepted, but never fully _committed_ to. She feels the hole in her heart deepen once more; this girl wanted family that didn’t hate, wanted a home that didn’t fear, a society that didn’t discriminate. She wanted simply to be accepted as something she had resented, but ultimately accepted herself as part of her since the day she first coaxed a bluebottle back into existence. She wanted someone to see her gift as tolerable, perhaps even interesting, and not something to punish. She never asked for more, never got caught in the glare of her own power like some of the other girls, never asked for the praise and _awe_ her extraordinary ability inspired in people, or _should have_ inspired in people. She didn’t even know how unique her magic was, how wonderful her ability was, how strong and good her soul was. Cordelia sobs harder at the thought of this girl’s desperate search for acceptance, never even considering that she might deserve anything more than tolerance.

 

She makes up for lost physical contact now, arms enveloping, pulling the swamp witch as close as possible and not giving a shit about _what it looks like._ Let them assume, she doesn’t care and they’re probably right anyway. She doesn’t halt her incantations, doesn’t slow or stammer or falter, the Latin progresses at the steady rate of tears, voice shaking, body trembling, heart _begging. Please, Misty. Please._

And then time is up.

 

She’s run out of time.

 

They both have.

 

And she hears Myrtle confirm it and she wants to look upon Misty’s face, just once more, just for a second, one last time, it would be enough anyway. She imagines it’s serene, the vision of natural beauty stemming and flowering from a heart entrenched in the valuing of life. She could cry over her failure, over her hopelessness and utter uselessness to her girls, her own wretched lack of ability that has let this happen. She could cry over her mother’s screaming and venomous words, Hank’s betrayal and now this tragedy being the final straw.

 

She could cry for her own broken heart.

 

But doesn’t give a shit about herself or her own self-pity anymore.

 

So she weeps for Misty, over Misty, for wasted potential and unrecognised talent, for life lost and dreams never dreamt, for someone _amazing_ who nobody seemed to ever see as such, for a girl now thrice lost, the essence of life and peace, simple and stunning and _tragic_ and it’s too soon, too unfair, too sudden. Her body turns to ash in Cordelia’s arms and she can barely gasp out breath between wracking sobs.

 

She’s left cradling empty air.

 

She thinks perhaps she’s truly stupid. She thinks perhaps there’s maybe hope and all is not lost. She thinks perhaps she’s _entirely_ blind. She thinks perhaps she has fallen in love with Misty Day. She feels it claw at her, tearing her heart from the inside out. Screw “perhaps”, she _must_ have been in love with Misty Day. That is the only explanation. Trust her to leave it too late. Misty had loved her, of course; she had loved everyone. She had shown it in every gesture and smile and word spoken. She will never tell her. It had taken her _disappearing into nothing_ in her embrace for her to finally figure it out.

 

The true weight of what she has lost crushes Cordelia into the carpet.

 

\----|--|----

 

In a twist that no one saw coming, Cordelia is the Supreme.

 

It happens so quickly. Zoe’s dead in the blink of an eye and the temporal shift of her body, impaled on the gate like a rabbit in a trap. Kyle’s agony and desperate cries are something Cordelia feels innately in the part of her that can relate entirely.

 

Madison refuses to bring her back. God help them all if she is the Supreme, refusing to save the life of the girl that fought so hard to give her her own back. Then again, Madison also attempted to bury alive the witch who had _physically brought her back to life_ because she feared she was competition. Talk about ingratitude, the girl’s heart is as black as Delphine LaLaurie’s, only she does not discriminate; she hates everyone equally.

 

And then Queenie can’t do it and it looks like Madison _is_ the Supreme and the spirit of the Coven plummets and they all haven’t slept all night and fatigue and melancholy weighs down the walls and the white looks glaring and the black looks endless and this _guilt_ bubbles under an icy cool exterior, and she knows she should be worrying about her Coven, and she is, but she’s just trying to keep it together and not break down again.

 

“Man, she’s hit hard.” Comments Queenie, in a tone that is almost sympathetic.

 

“Well, what did you expect?” Madison throws back. “She was hoping her little girlfriend was the Supreme so we could all run around wearing flower crowns and twirling barefoot in the garden and bringing birds back to life while we’re attacked from all sides. Too bad dear Misty wasn’t the Supreme.”

 

“Or maybe she just cares about all of us and doesn’t like it when we _die??_ ”

 

Madison snorts in dismissal. “Come on, Queenie. Did you see her blubbering her heart out when Zoe died?”

 

“Zoe isn’t stuck in Hell…”

 

“God, you’re as blind as she is! Those lesbians were planning the future of this fucking Coven as if we didn’t exist. Well, serves them right, I say.”

 

“Cordelia isn’t gay.”

 

“Her ex-husband is enough to put anyone off men, I’m sure. She _totally_ had the hots for that swamp bitch.”

 

“Well then it’s sad. Have a heart, _bitch_.”

 

Madison laughs as she lights her cigarette. “I don’t give a shit anymore. There’s no one else to compete. You’re looking at your Supreme.”

 

Whether or not Myrtle heard this exchange is immaterial, but she recognises fairly quickly that either the world has a sick sense of humour/a personal vendetta against this Coven, or Madison could not be the Supreme with such a cold heart. She gives Cordelia a push she didn’t know she needed. She steps up to the Seven Wonders with a detached determination to save what’s left of her sisterhood from the Supremacy of Madison Montgomery.

 

And she succeeds.

 

Zoe jolts back into life and Kyle is sobbing with gratitude and suddenly everything goes very black very quickly.

 

And then not so black.

 

\----|--|----

 

The bitter irony is lost on no one.

 

The girl that spent her whole life belittled and ignored as a result of being the disappointingly average daughter of the Supreme.

 

She wonders what her mother would say if she saw her now.

 

She doesn’t have to wonder for long.

 

Her mother dies in her arms and she can’t say she’s heartbroken. She’s already lost her once, what little regret she may have had is already filtered away. She thinks Fiona is proud of her, at least a little. Of course, the poisonous woman resents her _own daughter_ for draining her of her life force, but at least her only offspring, the one remnant of herself she will leave on Earth, has amounted to something at last. The basis for her appreciation is purely egotistical, as to be expected.

 

But Cordelia feels truly free, and perhaps like she and her mother have come to some sort of terms with each other in a rare moment of tenderness that actually counted for something.

 

And when Cordelia looks in the mirror, she does not see a feeble copy of her mother, in fact, the shadow of her mother has finally vanished, and her reflection is just that; her reflection. She is shimmering and beautiful, a vision of elegant serenity and quietly destructive power humming around her, practically glowing in white blonde hair and returned, glittering eyes. She will shoulder the burden gladly, and with grace and kindness, rather than terror and apathy.

 

Myrtle demands to be burned again. She refuses to be reasoned with, simply stating that it must be done, and Cordelia has no choice. Her composure slips as red material goes up in flames and the sound of her adoptive mother’s screams claw at her ears. It is a loss she mourns more than she ever could her birth mother’s, and a death she will carry in her heart, heavy with grief, but not guilt.

 

And now the past is past, the new era the Coven enters under her guidance promises prosperity, and Queenie and Zoe become her council, possibly the youngest ever, and the academy is packed to the rafters and witches are done hiding and are finally stepping into the sun from century after century of shadows and fear. The last toxic ghost of what the Coven used to be vanishes, and Cordelia is finally free to start afresh, burdenless, confident and supreme.

 

Of course it isn’t that simple.

 

Because she misses her. Time passes and the pain does not lessen. The Supremacy tastes bitter because it’s built on her loss. The world got suddenly brighter once all that passed, but it’s still noticeable duller. She misses Stevie Nicks renditions on lazy afternoons, and clumsy footfalls outside her door. She misses the wild blonde girl with the dazed, dreamy expression and the flyaway curls and the guiltless smile who twirls and sings and is both within nature and just outside it, flowering inside yet controlling above. Cordelia misses her days, her heart and her life being that little bit lighter, that little bit more alive and colourful. The witch lived up to her power in that she brought things once dead back to life, but not _just_ in the literal sense.

 

So as the Coven bustles around her and dawns get brighter and life gets better, she is filled with sorrow, but soon afterwards, determination, a kind of fierce determination of the Supreme that cannot be quelled, only achieved.

 

She will find Misty Day.

 

She will bring her back to this world, as she had done for so many when she was alive, where she belongs.

 

She will do whatever it takes, however long it takes, and whatever she must give.

 

Because she loves her, even now, and she doesn’t think she will stop any time soon. Because her sisters _need_ her. Because the _world_ doesn’t need people _like_ Misty Day, it needs Misty Day.

 

Because she knows what crushing blackness feels like, and she will do anything to get her light back.

 

 


	2. Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok. Fine. Here’s the second instalment since you asked so nicely. (I am also trying to convince myself that these two got a canon happy ending.)
> 
> I intend on publishing a Bananun and a Hotgomery piece of the same format as this one because I had a lot of fun. I don't know how long they will take or if they'll even ever be posted, but they're half written already, so keep an eye out if you're into the whole transcendent cross-series Paulson/Rabe thing.

**Part 2:**

“Cordelia, this is insane.”

 

“It’s gone on for long enough.”

 

“It’s impossible. And if it turns out to actually be possible, it’s so dangerous. Remember what happened last time? We had to stab him to death…again.”

 

“I appreciate your concern, and recognise that you are thinking only for the safety of this Coven, but you must understand, I won’t let any danger come to any of the girls, or you, or Queenie. I’ll do it alone.”

 

“You’re going to get yourself killed.”

 

“I am the Supreme, Zoe, and although I value you highly as a member of my council and indeed a friend, you must remember who you are speaking to.”

 

“I’m just looking out for you.”

 

“I know, I’m sorry. I just – I can’t…I have to do this. I have to try.”

 

She feels a hand on her shoulder, and turns to face her student, half of her council. She remembers the hesitance and caution the girl had felt when she first came to the academy, still so unsure of who she was, of _what_ she was. Look at her now; she’s grown in more ways than one.

 

“I miss her too, we all do, and she shouldn’t have died like that, but there’s nothing we can do. She’s gone.”

 

Cordelia shakes her head softly. “She can’t be. She’s still there, still stuck, forever. And as long as she is, there is a way to get her back. There is always a way, and I should have tried long ago.”

 

“Cordelia, I know how much this means to you, I know that it’s been on your mind since the Seven Wonders, but you’re the Supreme, and risking yourself just for the chance of getting her back is a bad idea. If you were to make just one mistake, this Coven would be done for.”

 

“Then I guess I’ll have to avoid making a mistake.”

 

Silence hangs in the air for a moment, before Zoe moves forwards once more.

 

“Cordelia –“

 

“It’s my responsibility to ensure the safety of _all_ the witches of this Coven. I must keep them safe and protect them in any way I can. I failed her, before I knew I was the Supreme, so for retribution, I must try now. I _have_ to try, Zoe. I’ll –“ She takes a shuddering breath in. “I will never forgive myself if I don’t.”

 

“I can’t stop you, but I ask you to seriously consider the dangers involved.”

 

“I have. Every day. I think of little else.”

 

Zoe smiles tightly, and thinks of Kyle and the struggle to resurrect him. Cordelia supposes she is remembering the way that, even when he was what one could call a monster, she didn’t give up on him, teaching him to speak again and trying to communicate with him. She never lost sight of the goal, and never gave up hope, and although it admittedly took Fiona’s help, she achieved it, and she must be unspeakably happy now he is himself again.

 

“If you need any help, I’m here. Don’t drag anyone else into this.”

 

Cordelia faces the girl and her expression is somewhere between appreciation and pride. “I won’t endanger anyone. Not even you. I can do it alone.”

 

She watches as Zoe debates with herself. Fear and worry and reluctance flit across her face, but she must know Cordelia’s mind better than the Supreme initially anticipated, as she makes no further arguments, and goes to leave the office.

 

She turns at the door. “Be careful, Cordelia. But if you can, bring her home, where she belongs.”

 

\----|--|----

 

It is worryingly easy to get her hands on cocaine.

 

And the walls of her bedroom mask the weak cry that escapes her lips as the draws the knife across her palm.

 

Seriously, this was all terrifyingly simple to prepare. She wonders if any of the girls under this roof have attempted this, and if they have, how would she know?

 

She doesn’t expect it to be simple; the complex incantation she recites and the order of the ritual. Nothing ever is when it comes to life and death. Not for regular people, that is. She remembers the ease with which plant and animal alike had blossomed into life under the gentle hands of one witch in particular…

 

 _Not yet_ , she chastises _Don’t get your hopes up._

As is becoming all too regular, her thoughts turn to the witch still trapped in her own personal hell. She feels the torment and pain she must be experiencing constantly as if it were her own. She will try anything. She will do anything. She will give anything…

 

Suddenly, the candles around her flare up and blaze in the instantly charged air. A wind generated from nowhere blows the pages of her spell book over. Crimson blood drips from her snowy palm onto the symbol of incense on the floor.

 

“It seems you are quite desperate.”

 

The voice is chilling in a way Cordelia never thought a voice could be, burying itself in her skin like frostbite.

 

She says nothing, feeling a strange ache behind her eyes. She supposes it is her body reacting negatively to such an unnatural presence. She feels sluggish and tired, dizzy beyond belief, but that could be because her hand is still bleeding. She forces herself to wake up; she must be alert if this is to work.

 

She stands and turns to the source of the voice.

 

Papa Legba leans on the side table, pushing the white powder around, forming oddly equal lines. He is wiry and skeletal in appearance, but matches up almost exactly to what Cordelia expected. He reaches bony fingers up to tilt his hat towards her.

 

“You called.”

 

“I did.” She wishes her voice didn’t have the tendency to reveal how scared she was.

 

His accent is Haitian, she believes, and the cracked skin of his face painted like skull. The edges of him are blurry, as though she’s looking at him through a screen of steam.

 

He turns and bends, dragging the drugs up his nose with a deep breath. Cordelia hovers behind him, feeling both terrified and awkward in the oddest combination of emotions. She just wants –

 

“What is it you want?” She stifles a shiver as he turns to face her again, cold, dead, crimson eyes piercing.

 

Cordelia cuts to the chase. “I want someone returned from hell.”

 

He laughs, but she gets the oddest feeling that it isn’t at her, but rather at a private joke only he understands.

 

“No shit.”

 

He approaches. She remains still.

 

“Can you help me or not?”

 

“That depends what you define as ‘help’.”

 

“I want you to return someone you are keeping trapped.”

 

“It is likely that I am not going to do that.”

 

“You want something in return, I get it. What do you want?”

 

“Who do you want returned?”

 

“One of our own. A witch. Taken five months ago.”

 

A stomach-turning smirk spreads across his skull-like face.

 

“That was a big month for death in this Coven. You might want to be more specific.”

 

Something about saying her name out loud makes Cordelia feel uneasy. She hasn’t said her name to anyone since she ascended to be Supreme. People who know her don’t need clarification. It’s like admitting that she’s gone, and indeed admitting that Cordelia will give just about anything to get her back.

 

“You know who I want back. You only appeared when I thought of her.”

 

He laughs again. “I was wondering how long it would take you to call for me.”

 

She flinches at her own predictability.

 

“So, you’re willing to sacrifice almost anything for her?”

 

She nods.

 

“You are remarkably like your mother.” Cordelia stiffens. “Only her intentions when summoning me were entirely selfish. You don’t seem to have a selfish bone in your body, my dear.”

 

She says nothing.

 

“Your little swamp witch is indeed with me, through her own doing, may I add.”

 

“She didn’t mean to. It was my fault – “

 

“Yes, yes, whatever you say. The point is, she is rightfully mine.”

 

“She does not belong there. It goes against everything she is.”

 

“Perhaps so.” He considers, or pretends to consider.

 

“What do you want?” She asks, and the desperation in her voice makes her sick, but it seems she can’t keep it out. “I’ll give you anything.”

 

His smirk grows gigantic, and shows yellow and black teeth, like piano keys.

 

“You are weaker than your mother. She never let herself be so vulnerable.” He begins to circle her, she forces herself no to curl in on herself.

 

“She is very pretty, but surely the _Supreme_ can do better than a bayou-bred?”

 

Cordelia’s eyes slide shut as she forces back tears.

 

“That has nothing to do with anything. I want her back; that is all you need to know. Why I want her back is immaterial.”

 

He laughs again, and it is such a hellish sound she is pretty certain the windowpanes rattle.

 

He comes to face her again.

 

“Poor little Cordelia. Even now, still fighting your demons.” He smiles and she shrinks back minutely. “I love her too. For the same reason you do. She is light and goodness and life. She is the exact opposite of me. Of course I love her.”

 

Cordelia bites down on her lip hard enough to draw blood.

 

“However, not in the way you do, my dear. I love keeping her there. I love watching that golden spirit be crushed over and over again. You may know that I ask for innocent souls in return for favours, well that is because they are the most rewarding to keep trapped. Watching purity and goodness caged by my darkness gives me life, in a manner of speaking. Usually this comes from children; the purest of souls, but you have inadvertently delivered to me a grown soul of extraordinary light, stemming from her natural power of resurgence. For that I must thank you, she has been unspeakably rewarding. Given this, I don’t want to part with her. I will not part with her. Her misery gives me too much.”

 

“I don’t think you understand just how far I’m willing to go to make this deal.” She says, and her voice is stronger now. She thinks of endless empty nights of regret and retrospect, sobbing in the solitude at the one failure that she has never been able to overcome in amongst all of the good she has done the Coven. She thinks of time spent at the swamp, keeping the garden and home in order should she miraculously appear out of nowhere like she did the first time. She remembers throwing herself into her work, her pupils, her Supremacy, to escape the fact that her own shadow seems unfamiliar to her. She struggled forwards, and the girls and the improvements and the new found publicity of witchcraft gave her solace and peace, but she has still fallen asleep on the little bed in the swamp shack, wrapped up in a Stevie Nicks shawl, tears of hopelessness drying on cheeks that know them too well.

 

By the time she drags herself out of her reverie, Papa Legba has polished off the offered drugs. He saunters forward again, once more invading her personal space.

 

“Would you _really_ give anything? I don’t think so.”

 

She swallows thickly and grits her teeth, staring defiantly into fiery eyes.

 

“You are familiar with Marie Laveau?”

 

“I am. I was.”

 

“She made a deal with me for her eternal youth. A sacrifice to be made once a year until the end of time.”

 

Cordelia decides she _definitely_ doesn’t like the sound of that.

 

“A child. An innocent young thing, to be given to me in exchange for what she wanted.”

 

Cordelia feels her throat close up. She has fought for so long, in vain, to start a family. She remembers how desperately she had longed for a child. She is as maternal as her mother wasn’t. She isn’t capable of such a thing.

 

“I – not that…I couldn’t…”

 

“So not _anything_ then?”

 

She holds his gaze, but shakes her head firmly. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t hand over one innocent child, let alone a lifetime of them. Besides, the witch she’s trying to save would never forgive her for agreeing to it.

 

“Well, this puts me in a difficult position.” He swipes the bottle of whisky off the floor and swigs from it. “You see, that’s all that is equal to her. No other price is a fair one. I enjoy her…company too much, her presence in my realm is too beneficial to give up. I will do no more for you.” He turns from her.

 

“Please! You have to. I’ve –“

 

He pauses with his back to her, before turning to face her once more. His beady eyes sweep the length of her body, seeing under her skin, evaluating.

 

“I _have_ to do nothing. I came out of politeness, civility. You want what is rightfully mine, and cannot pay for it. So, my answer is no.” He moves closer, the smell of death and cigarettes stings her eyes, but she glares defiantly up at him. “I will not be told what to do by the likes of you; a little white bitch. She is mine. She is gone. Get used to it.” He growls.

 

When he returns to the table to take the remaining offerings, Cordelia allows herself a shiver, taking a deep breath.

 

“Thanks for the coke, it is…much appreciated.” His voice is mocking and chilling and she just wants him to leave now, since he evidently has no intention of helping her.

 

“I shall go.” She thinks his obvious clairvoyance is more irritating and invasive than Nan’s was.

 

He picks up the alcohol and finishes it off. He addresses her once more.

 

“You are a fool, Cordelia Foxx. Your goodness is a weakness, and it means, as has been the case in your life so far, you will never get what you want. Always disappointed…”

 

“It’s Goode.” She says, her voice level now.

 

He chuckles harshly. “Either way you bear the name of a rotten family tree.”

 

He begins to blur even more at the edges. The sourceless wind rises again.

 

“You are the Supreme, stupid girl. I will not help you, but you can help yourself. Harness your abilities, and not even death can stop you.”

 

And then he’s gone.

 

\----|--|----

 

It has been days of endless reading and fretting and nights of endless insomnia and obsessive exploration.

 

She hasn’t slept properly in a week, only a few hours a night. The chill Papa Legba set in her bones hasn’t dissipated, nor has her determination.

 

She realises what he was doing when he gave a hint he had no obligation to give. Voodoo spirits such as him aren’t just occasionally helpful or merciful, no, it was to aid his own ends. He wants another soul prematurely trapped in his realm, another _witch_ stuck in her own personal hell at her own hands, unable to escape, and what’s more, the current Supreme. That’s a prize worth fighting for, she knows.

 

But if he gave her the hint so that she would follow it up and get herself stuck there forever, then that means there _is_ a way to do it…well, to get there at least…

 

It’s only ever been achieved once. A past Supreme made the journey to the afterlife of another in order to rescue them, but the book holding the information is vague, merely stating that it was treacherous and soul-battering, and yet failing to mention whether or not she made it back with the one she was searching for.

 

Cordelia doesn’t care. This has gone on for long enough, months and months too long really. She will protect her Coven at all costs, of course; recklessness, disregard and selfishness were the traits that blossomed in her mother and that she is so desperate to keep out of her own method of leadership. She hasn’t told her council; probably the first sign that this is a bad idea, but she knows how badly they would react if they knew just how far she was willing to go to see this through.

 

She had informed Zoe on the ineffective nature of her attempt at bargaining with Papa Legba, then never mentioned the subject again. She knows that her girls are too clever to have not noticed that something is amiss, however. Her weariness and exhaustion clearly show, despite radiant health and the glow of Supremacy. She is distant when among her students, then up for hours at a time in her room, and can be frequently heard pacing the floor of her study into the late hours of the night. The Supreme has her heart and mind set on something, that is certain, and if anyone takes serious notice, it is not acted upon. They realise it would be pointless anyway; Cordelia always was tenacious.

 

Within ten days, she’s read as much as is possible on the matter, run through her plan of action too many times to count, and locked herself in her bedroom, opening all of the windows into the still night. Blood oozes in a puddle of crimson, staining the white her prone body is swathed in, and creeping into snow blonde hair. She’d make quite the aesthetic if there were anyone to observe her. Seemingly random objects surround her; a tiny plant just sprouting in a pot of earth, a shawl covered in grass stains, a hairbrush, an earring, a handful of feathers from the pillow in the shack, a goblet of swamp mud and a single tiny bone, one of the many individuals that make up the spine of an alligator.

 

Cordelia takes a last look at the tranquillity of the world she’s constructed for herself and her Coven, a world she thought would never exist, let alone welcome her with open arms. She closes her eyes and breathes in the moonlight and incense. She recites the Latin that now after practice flows off her tongue like a sigh.

 

Then she’s gone to the world.

 

\----|--|----

 

It’s two days. That’s how long she’s out.

 

The spell she’s put on her bedroom door stops anyone entering.

 

The rain pelts in through the open windows and soaks the floor and indeed her, but the candles blaze on, as they have been enchanted to.

 

Zoe is worried sick. Queenie’s rage at the apparent abandonment turns to trepidation, and soon, fear. The Coven spends the 48 hours quivering at the sudden and abrupt loss of the Supreme. No one knows what to do. The council tries to continue as normal. Kyle spends the whole period set up outside Cordelia’s door, watching, waiting, protecting, as is his charge.

 

Zoe tells Queenie what she thinks Cordelia has done. Queenie isn’t surprised. No one is. They fear that she is stuck. Two days in hell means the chances of return are minute. They wonder if the door will ever open. They plan what to do now that it is likely the Supreme has gone prematurely, when the girls in the academy are no where near old or mature enough to even start manifesting any extraordinary abilities that may be indicative of a rising replacement.

 

Panic grips Ms Robichaux’s for the longest forty-eight hours possible.

 

\----|--|----

 

She quite likes the darkness. It reminds her of when she was blind, and when everything was black and white…or…just black, as the situation was. When everything made sense and truth was available at a touch. When she was alive and ashamed and afraid.

 

She prefers it to the light. It’s too bright and reveals too much. She’s getting tired of straining to see.

 

She’s tired of listening to her mother scream. It starts as an agitated hiss, then a full-blown shouting rant, then she’s crying and her power is so terrifying that Cordelia cowers under the table and under the radar, squeezing her hands until they’re numb, and soon she’s numb, and it’s the worst kind of vacancy, and her mother is shouting at her for being weak again and for just blocking it all out instead of addressing it. She’s so tired of trying. She thought she had left all this behind her.

 

Hands tug from all directions and she knows she must surrender to them if she ever wants it to stop. Scenes shift at a dizzying speed, she wonders if the Supreme, whoever it is, knows just how much potential there is here, in this realm of openness. She thinks that she would be better off here. She was too happy back in the academy; it mustn’t have been real. She thinks real means good, but she’s not sure anymore.

 

Every now and then, they’ll be a splash of water and a realisation that she is searching for something, and she gropes around for it in comforting darkness, and she thinks she feels something soft and warm, but it darts as soon as she touches it. She’s angry then, angry because she’s honestly just trying to help, Jesus.

 

She can’t actually hear anything now. She thinks it is because she’s been here long enough that she’s deaf now, immune to it all. She must be stuck. Oh well, it was worth a try. Why had she done this again? To face her demons? To abandon her responsibilities? Was she just bored?

 

She flicks through the worlds in her head, choosing one she hasn’t experienced yet. A new challenge, that’s what she needs. A new situation in which she can try not to cry or scream, but ultimately fail.

 

She has to focus now. There was something to be sought, and it’s been too long. She isn’t sure just how long, but a second here is too long. She is strong, she thinks, she can cope, or at least get by, as she has in the past.

 

There is a flash of something she recognises, something that isn’t her mother or husband or despair. It’s a pair of wide blue eyes, then uncertain pink lips, then torment-tousled hair. _There you are. At last, it’s been too long and you’ve been hiding too well._

She can see bits of what she’s going through. It is sterile and unfeeling, and there is a life as fickle and unimportant as anyone else’s, perhaps more so. She is sobbing, she has been for eternity, she is begging and failing and it happens again and again and it’s white and silver and then green skin and red blood and this is surprisingly cruel, she realises, surprisingly horrible for an event that she would think nothing of. She feels horror and exhaustion that is not her own. This ends now. All of it. It needs to stop if it is ever to start again. If she, if _they_ are ever to get anywhere from this point, she has to let go.

 

 _“Misty.”_ She either breathes it or bellows it. It is the first time, she thinks, since she lost her. It is also the first time the witch in question has heard her name spoken in what must feel like eternity. It’s enough to get glassy, tear stained eyes to break away from the cycle, only momentarily, and meet Cordelia’s, wherever she is.

 

_Is it enough?_

 

She jolts awake on the cold, damp floor of her bedroom.

 

\----|--|----

 

She’s absolutely exhausted. She’s been lying on her back for god knows how long, not moving at all. In fact, she hasn’t even been _in_ her body, so why on earth is she so tired? Her eyes open and she’s so disorientated she thinks she’ll be sick, but she can’t move enough to have any sort of violent physical reaction to being suddenly reinserted into her body. Her tongue feels like it belongs to someone else; cold and heavy and dry in her mouth. She’s freezing, but cannot shiver. She manages to wet her mouth, then her lips, and breathes in, lungs kicking into motion again, heart thudding sluggishly to get her frozen blood flowing again and brain slowly warming up, like a computer that hasn’t been switched on for years.

 

That’s her first indicator. She’s been out longer than expected, since motor function takes a long time to return. What has she done? What had she been doing? Did she really escape?

 

Her memories return to her in a flurry that knocks the air from her. Hell; she’s been in her own personal hell, or rather, her own and other people’s. It was a different kind of descensum, a horrifying, despairing kind.

 

 

She’d gone to get Misty back. She’d finally gathered the courage to do it, and now she has returned.

 

She sits up in a hurry and her vision goes white and spotted for a minute, then she looks over to the oval of chalk she had drawn to her right, surrounded by candles that no longer burn and the various possessions of the swamp witch.

 

She is there.

 

Right in the centre.

 

Lying peacefully still on the floor, on her back, arms by her sides, as one would arrange a body before burial.

 

Cordelia’s heart leaps into her throat. It worked? How long has she been gone? Blood is clotted in her clothes and the floor is damp from rain from the open windows. The candles are entirely burnt out.

 

She drags herself over towards Misty, her legs not cooperating, and hesitates on the border of chalk. She remembers reading that crossing spiritual borders before full completion is dangerous, but has no idea how to check if the ritual is “complete” or not.

 

Sprawled just outside her protective circle, she drinks in Misty, and tears start falling before she can stop them. The girl is as fresh as the day she lost her; blonde curls spread around her, skin flawless and pale, eyes closed, mouth closed, entirely naked and entirely real.

 

Cordelia watches in fascination and trepidation as final touches are added. Misty’s eyelashes, that had been missing before, grow back within seconds, as do the fingernails on her right hand, and the muscles in her legs tense minutely, then relax again, one by one. Finally, her chest lifts with breath, with life.

 

Cordelia sobs loudly into her hands through sheer shock and joy and she’s terrified that this is all fictitious, that she’s still in that place and this is a newly conjured torment. But she feels the cold wood of the floor against her thin nightdress and the breeze chilling her and the stiffness in her limbs and Misty is breathing at a regular rate now. She wonders how much longer she must wait before interference is safe.

 

Her sob had sounded through the door, and the handle rattles, but her attention is not drawn from the unconscious form she has spent so long trying to get back. The door swings open with considerable force, the spell now broken, and a sharp intake of breath follows.

 

“C-Cordelia?”

 

It’s Kyle. She turns to face him, tears streaming down pale, bloodless cheeks, a grin spreading wider and wider across her face.

 

“You’re here?” He stammers in surprise.

 

“Y-yes…Yes I’m really here. I’m back. I got back.” She whispers, her voice cracked from disuse.

 

He stands for a minute with his mouth hanging open in disbelief, and then looks as though he is about to add something, then notices the prone form behind her.

 

“Is that – how...” Tears of shock gather in his own eyes. “ _Misty?!”_

Cordelia laughs as tears continue to fall. “Yes. I brought her back. I did it. She’s here.”

 

Kyle stands for another moment, dumfounded, before turning away and running down the corridor to the landing.

 

“Zoe! Queenie! Get up here now!” He shouts into the house.

 

Cordelia turns back to Misty, and it is a matter of seconds of contemplation before a gasp echoes round the room and blue eyes snap open. Misty’s body lurches forward, and she can’t sit up yet, but she’s dragging air into her lungs as she adjusts to consciousness and re-orientates herself.

 

She barely has time to gather herself and consider where she is before Cordelia has dragged herself to her feet, pulled a blanket off her bed and enveloped Misty entirely, covering her and holding her and crying into blonde curls and she can feel her and smell her and hear her shaking breathing and confused gasps and she can’t form words right now.

 

Her grip on the girl is suffocating, and probably isn’t considerate since she’s been in hell for the best part of six months. No complaints are voiced, however, and she’s still sobbing and rocking Misty as she clings to her in desperation, silently begging that this is real and she’s here and she won’t disappear because that would be the worst version of hell she could experience, a fear she didn’t realise scorched her so deeply until she had held Misty once more.

 

“Miss –“ The stammer is broken and terrified and makes the tears fall faster.

 

“Shh…you’re here, you’re safe, you’re home. It’s over, Misty, it’s ok…”

 

Misty starts shaking and perhaps she’s crying too because her hand is fisted in Cordelia’s nightdress and the other is gripping the Supreme’s arm so tightly it will bruise and there’s nothing to be done but stay there, on the floor, in the cold, with Cordelia holding the resurrected ressurector and crying with relief into her shoulder.

 

Kyle comes back with Zoe and Queenie on his heel and they stand in the doorway in awestruck silence and witness the Supreme cradling the swamp witch they’d thought they would never see again and brushing her hair away from her face so she can reassert the physical presence of the girl.

 

“It’s ok, you’re alive. You never have to go back there. I promise. I – I’m so sorry, Misty. Oh god…”

 

There is about a minute of silence from the Council and Cordelia whispering whatever she can think of to comfort and reassure a still trembling Misty, but she thinks perhaps she is trying to reassure herself as well. Zoe swallows and steps forward.

 

“Cordelia…it’s been two days…we thought…we thought you were gone. We thought you were trapped…”

 

Cordelia looks up. Her smile is bright and watery.

 

“So did I. I thought I’d never get back. I’m so sorry, you three. In fact I’m sorry to everyone for being so irresponsible.”

 

Zoe smiles gently. “You did it.”

 

Cordelia nods, her grip on Misty loosening slightly as the terror subsides. “I did it.”

 

Misty can move now, body responding to her orders. She looks from Zoe, to Queenie, to Kyle, to Zoe again, then the remnants of the ritual on the floor, then back to the people at the door, then finally up at Cordelia, whose arms are still around her.

 

“Your – your _eyes…_ ”

 

She raises a hand to trace around Cordelia’s eyes, as she had done when the tissue there was cracked and scarred what seems like a lifetime ago.

 

Cordelia smiles and nods.

 

“They’re… _yours_ …”

 

She retracts her hand hesitantly, and traces the shape of Cordelia’s face with her eyes, like she’s pencilling the very outline of her features. Realisation dawns and her eyes glitter.

 

“You’re the Supreme.”

 

She nods and lets out a soft flutter of laughter; leftover desperation and pure relief because Misty is talking to her in _her_ accent with _her_ voice and she never thought that would happen again.

 

And then she smiles and Cordelia cries harder. It’s a hopeful, desperate, happy smile that shows her fear that this isn’t real and disbelief that maybe it could be and Cordelia has spent the last months trying to remember every exact detail of that smile without realising that she was doing it, and her memories can’t compare to the real thing. She thinks the power of the Supreme inside her has doubled in strength as she restrains herself from pulling the swamp witch against her and never letting go.

 

Misty’s just been staring at her in awe, eyes drawn to the hum of light and magic around her and the Council and Kyle hang awkwardly at the door, feeling decidedly intrusive. It’s then that Misty glances briefly downwards and frowns, and Cordelia comes slightly more to her senses.

 

“Are you ok?”

 

The girl swallows, and looks like she might say no; six months in hell was always going to leave its mark on a person. She swallows and nods slightly uncertainly.

 

“We’d better get you some clothes.” She begs that she isn’t blushing, because now is _not the time_. She’s supposed to be the Supreme, not some sheepish schoolgirl.

 

She helps a very unsteady Misty to her feet, feeling shaky on her own legs as well. With some assistance from Kyle, they manage to get her to sit on the bed, the blanket wrapped firmly around her.

 

“Zoe, could you get her some clothes?”

 

“Um…I think we sort of…threw them away? Like when we thought she was…you know…”

 

“There are…some in my closet. In a box, at the back.” She is _definitely_ blushing now, but Misty looks too disorientated, and slightly eager at the prospect of the return of her shawls to question why the Supreme still has a box of her stuff.

 

The swamp witch still trembles slightly, and Kyle pats her on the shoulder and Queenie says she is glad she is back and Zoe brings her some clothes, and then they leave the two shaken women to come to their senses, and slink out of the door to kick the Coven back into action, now the Supreme has returned.

 

“Are you sure you’re ok?”

 

“I’m – I’m fine…I think…”

 

Misty brushes tears away from her cheeks and inhales shakily. Cordelia takes her hand, incredibly reluctant to completely let go of her just yet.

 

“How long has it been?” The question comes with a slight tone of fear.

 

“Almost six months.” There’s shame in Cordelia’s voice.

 

Misty takes another deep breath in. The room is cold, and she pulls the blanket tighter around her shoulders. Cordelia closes the window and switches on the lights with a flick of her hand.

 

“I would have gone looking for you earlier, but the Coven was a mess and I was the Supreme and it was _so complicated_ –“

 

“You don’t have to justify anything.” Her voice is so soft and appreciative that Cordelia is worried she’ll start crying again. “Ya got me back, and I’m so grateful. Ya saved me…again.”

 

Cordelia swallows hard with something like self-loathing, a feeling that is still present, hidden under the glow of the Supremacy. Misty’s hair brushes her upper arm and her endless eyes glitter with unshed tears and the colour’s slowly returning to deathly pale skin and her breathing has evened out and she’s so beautifully alive, Cordelia struggles to believe that her body didn’t exists an hour prior.

 

“Why don’t you get dressed, then we’ll get you something to eat.”

 

Misty smiles gently and nods and Cordelia slips away to change and shower in the bathroom, brushing blood out of washed hair and pulling at the grey circles under tear-reddened eyes. She doesn’t look much like the all-powerful Supreme right now; more appropriately like she’s been through hell and back.

 

When she returns, Misty’s dressed, complete with shawl, and she’s lying on Cordelia’s bed, on her side, curled in on herself in the foetal position, not quite sleeping.

 

Cordelia approaches slowly, and it hits her then just what has happened. It’s been two days of hell, literally. Two days of her body cooling and stiffening on the floor of her bedroom, two days of hopelessly stumbling through different realities and nightmares, searching blindly for a goal she couldn’t remember. She found her. She saw her and remembered, and then coaxed her back. She did it. Misty’s back, she’s alive and healthy, but of course shaken, as Cordelia is, if she’s honest with herself. They’ve been through something that no one should have to endure when they have done nothing to deserve it, and adjustment might be difficult. But none of that matters, because she has achieved something. She was so strong. She has saved a member of her Coven from her premature fate. She has shown herself that she is more than capable of whatever the world can throw at her.

 

And she’s got Misty back…

 

Soft tears fall silently from Misty’s eyes, wetting Cordelia’s pillow. She’s trying to control them, screwing her eyes shut and curling further inward, but it’s like she can’t help it. Cordelia lays a hand on her shoulder, and Misty looks up at her with a flooded gaze, comforted, but pleading. Cordelia fully understands. They’ve seen hell, and it makes one feel tiny, terrified of the world and worse, what lies beyond it. It is an experience that will undoubtedly haunt them both for as long as they live. Misty has suffered such great trauma without being aware of it, and all emotions she _should_ have been able to physically express now flood over her, overwhelming her.

 

Cordelia says nothing. She doesn’t know what to say to offer either of them some extra comfort, so she does the next thing she can think of that seems reasonable in that situation. She walks to the other side of the bed and slides in, lying beside Misty for a moment, before a stifled, almost imperceptible sob sounds from the swamp witch, and she takes it as a sign, a hint.

 

She wraps her arms around Misty, cocooning her, protecting her. Misty relaxes in her arms, crying more freely now, and Cordelia buries her face in wild hair, breathing the witch in, feeling the heat of her skin and the beat of her heart and she _still_ inexplicably smells of the greenhouse. What should be an affectionate embrace feels a lot like clinging to a life raft, like the girl’s the only thing that is logical.

 

She doesn’t know exactly how long it is before she falls asleep.

 

\----|--|----

 

“Do you think she’s told her yet?”

 

“She’s only just got back. And it was one hell of a trip as well.”

 

“I know but it seems kind of fitting.”

 

“I just hope it isn’t another period of loaded looks.”

 

“Nah, they’re way past that now.”

 

“Wouldn’t be so sure, I’m guessing it’s complicated.”

 

“I think she was happy with the way it was. I know she’s always been one for organisation and labels, but Misty sure as hell isn’t, and everything’s kind of fucked up now.”

 

“Maybe…”

 

“Either way, we’re gonna have to explain to everyone where the Supreme disappeared off to for two days.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Yep.”

 

\----|--|----

 

“This place is bustlin’.”

 

“Yes, we went public. We have almost sixty girls here. We’re thinking of expanding, maybe buying a new property.”

 

“You’ve done so well. I said you’d be an awesome leader, remember?”

 

Cordelia smiles over her cup of coffee. “Yes. You were clearly more perceptive than I was.”

 

“Stop turning compliments into a way of insultin’ yourself.” Misty rises and puts her empty plate in the sink. The simple indicator of domesticity throws Cordelia into another storm of gratitude that the girl is back. She would almost say it’s like nothing has changed.

 

“I want you to be part of my council, Misty.” She says. She doesn’t remember ever seriously considering the idea, just that it seems the obvious thing to say.

 

Misty leans against the counter, looking momentarily surprised, then frowning.

 

“I thought there were only two witches on the council.”

 

Cordelia shrugs. “It’s also the first council to have members so young, but I suppose since I’m the Supreme, I make the rules. I want you on it, if you’re ok with that. I feel like you already have a place, if I’m honest.”

 

“Well, I’m –“ Misty clears her throat. “I’m flattered, Miss Cordelia. I wanna help…in whatever way I can.”

 

She falls silent, and looks like she’s lost in thought, and not particularly pleasant thought at that. Cordelia, noticing the troubled furrow of her brow, stands and briefly touches her arm, drawing her attention to perfectly healed eyes.

 

“Are you ok?”

 

Misty smiles tightly and nods. “Yeah, I’m ok.”

 

“Ok isn’t great. Is there anything I can do?” _How can you even hope to understand the six months of torture she’s been through?_

“You’ve done so much, Miss Cordelia. I don’t think there’s anymore you _can_ do…”

 

“I’m here if you want to talk…it’s in the job description.”

 

Misty smiles gratefully, and the spark is slowly coming back into her eyes; that joyful wonder of life.

 

Cordelia is suddenly very conscious of the realisation she came to as Misty dissolved in her arms six months prior. She has willingly been through terrible ordeals to return her to this world, she held her as life returned, slept beside her as she cried quietly into the night, she has in the past incited countless embraces and more weighted, hesitant touches. She has invited kisses and offered comfort and cried and cried at her loss. She has endured heartbreak, and fought so hard to achieve the impossible, to return a spirit trapped, and she has been successful. She has faced her emotions and accepted what has inevitably happened, but now, presented with the source of her turmoil once again, she feels herself terrified. She fears her own feelings and what they mean and she’s retreating back into her shell, because whenever this has happened in the past, it’s always come back to slap her in the face.

 

“It’s just…strange. It’s like all the time I was there was limitless, like it was only a few hours but also like it was twenty years. It’s so strange bein’ back, and I keep shakin’ for no reason and thinkin’ I’m gonna close my eyes and end up back there, like I’m gonna get caught in that cycle again and – I’m so scared of everythin’ ‘cause I never wanna go there again and –“

 

“Shh, it’s ok.” Cordelia soothes when she sees tears spring into Misty’s eyes once more. “I know, you must be scared, and you _deserve_ to be a little skittish right now, but you’re safe, and this is real, _you’re_ real, and you won’t have to go back there, Misty. You just have to…heal…and I’m here, we all are, and I want to help…”

 

Misty bites her lip and nods and Cordelia pulls her into an embrace; brief and friendly but necessary as Misty inhales shakily.

 

“How much has the greenhouse changed?” Misty asks, changing the subject.

 

“Very little. Come on, we’ll go there now.” Cordelia gestures for Misty to follow her out towards the back garden.

 

“Don’t you have… _Supreme-ing_ to do?”

 

She shrugs and smirks. “Probably. This is more important though. There’s nothing some fresh air and soil can’t heal.”

 

\----|--|----

 

“Are you sure? We sort of made a promise that we’d help everyone.”

 

“I’m certain. It’s fine, Queenie, we get hundreds of applications a week, and it’s on the increase, and about 80% of them aren’t actually witches. I concede it is difficult to define witchcraft, but there are a lot of girls who just feel misunderstood and/or want to go to Hogwarts.”

 

“Ok, you’re the boss.” Queenie shreds another file. Cordelia takes a sip of tea before rifling through the slowly shrinking pile of applications.

 

“By the way Cordelia, is she ok?”

 

Cordelia looks up from what she’s doing, momentarily confused. “Misty? Um, yes. I believe so. I mean, you see her around, don’t you?”

 

“Yeah, and she _seems_ fine, but you spend more time with her than anyone and after that she’s bound to be a little…unsteady. We – Zoe and Kyle and me, that is – were just worried.”

 

“Understandably so.” She pushes her stapler away to make room to open another file, scanning it. “She is readjusting remarkably well, from what I can tell. She looks more comfortable, more at home, she’s not showing any physical symptoms…”

 

“And…nightmares?”

 

Cordelia’s gaze locks on Queenie’s with dizzying speed. Cordelia spends perhaps more time than is appropriate watching over Misty, especially at night. She has never done anything one would call invasive, but she recognises that she perhaps needn’t stand outside her door, ear pressed to the wood, listening for sounds indicative of terror. When she does hear the swamp witch cry out, she slips silently in and makes sure she’s not hurting herself. Just watching, guarding, protecting, she assures herself. She has in the past, stood in the room, back pressed against the door, waiting for her to settle down again, for hours. This is not every night, only when she’s passing and feels the need to check, or can’t sleep herself. She has only ever interfered once, when Misty was crying out in her sleep, clutching at the covers and dry sobbing into her pillow, and Cordelia hadn’t been able to restrain herself from perching on the edge of her bed and gently smoothing back her hair, stroking her head until her breathing evened out and she calmed down. If she’s honest with herself, she thinks she’s a little paranoid. The girl is hesitant still, but other than the expected caution, she’s bright and happy and carefree as before, and yet Cordelia cannot help this nagging tenacity. She is constantly worried, a deep-rooted protectiveness of the Cajun, a desperation to make sure she’s ok, and to reassert the fact as regularly as possible. She tries to stop it affecting her behaviour, but she thinks perhaps once or twice Misty has caught a glance that shows worry, and perhaps obsession with the girl’s safety.

 

Honestly, she thinks she is having a harder time calming down than Misty is.

 

She looks at Queenie, who has evidently discovered that Cordelia has been “casually monitoring” Misty’s sleeping patterns, and decides to be honest.

 

“She has nightmares, Queenie, as I expected she would. But they’ll go, I hope, and either way, there isn’t much I can do. There isn’t much anyone can do but wait for her to get used to everything and hopefully for those memories to fade. I’m – I’m doing as much –“

 

“Yeah, I know. The first time she had a really bad one, Zoe went round, but she said it was nothing. She’s brave, I’ll give her that. She’s really apologetic as well, because she sometimes wakes me up, and I get pretty pissed and I know it isn’t her fault but damn, if there’s one thing I need it’s sleep...”

 

“I know, Queenie, and we all just have to be patient. She’ll heal, but it’ll take time. I appreciate your concern, all of you, and I’m sure Misty would too.”

 

Queenie nods solemnly and removes the paper from the shredder, carrying it towards the door to set it alight outside with the rest.

 

\----|--|----

 

Cordelia would never admit that she has trouble sleeping herself. Not because she’s proud, but because there’s enough going on already with new students and a lack of space for the Council to be worried about the Supreme _as well_.

 

It’s about the third week of Misty being back when she ventures into the garden at night once more.

 

Like the first time, she sets the sky alight with fireflies.

 

Like the first time, Cordelia watches silently from her bedroom window. It’s only a few hours before sunrise, and there’s an eerie lull of calm in the air, an unsettling peace.

 

The stars are out like a city in the sky and it’s breath-taking, so much so that Misty lies down on the grass on her back and gazes upwards. Her dress and hair and skin are so pale that she glows as bright as the fireflies. Cordelia wonders if Misty’s glow is something her appearance ignites, something literal and physical caused by her intrinsic connection to nature, or a figment of Cordelia’s imagination. She hopes for her own sake that it isn’t the latter.

 

She gently rests her forehead against the cold glass of the window and sighs. She’s both elated and melancholic simultaneously. It’s like she’s only half succeeded, even though Misty’s back and the Coven is flourishing and she thinks she’s a _genuinely good_ Supreme so far. She has a pretty good idea why she feels slightly bereft, especially when looking at the swamp witch, but she won’t go there, she’s told herself.

 

_You’re a fool, Cordelia Goode._

She smiles sadly and retreats back into her bedroom.

 

\----|--|----

 

“Are you ok?”

 

“I wish you’d stop askin’ me that.” Misty asserts, grinning as she glances over her shoulder at the Supreme. Stevie Nicks echoes ethereally through the humid air, a refreshing reminder that things might actually get better, maybe even return to the way they were before.

 

“It’s my job, I’m allowed to be concerned.”

 

“How about we agree that I’ll let ya know if I’m not. Deal?”

 

Cordelia gives an answering smile as she approaches and leans on the table, next to Misty. “Ok. Deal.”

 

“I’m just havin’ some…trouble…with the plants…” She’s smiling, but visibly frustrated.

 

“In what way?”

 

“I dunno, I feel like hell must be hangin’ around me, ‘cause it’s difficult bringin’ ‘em back at the moment.” She mumbles as she focuses on the plant in front of her; mostly dead with dried, crackling leaves.

 

“Hell’s not _hanging around_ you! Don’t be ridiculous.” Cordelia says light-heartedly, then watches as Misty gently touches the plant, and nothing happens.

 

“Well then it’s more difficult than I remember it.”

 

She watches as Misty focuses harder, eyes narrowed and hands pressed against the soil. Cordelia thinks the stem greens slightly, and the leaves definitely twitch, becoming slightly less brittle.

 

She places her hand on the small of Misty’s back and leans over slightly to look at the plant. Almost immediately, the stem strengthens and the rich green colour comes flooding back, leaves fleshing out and flowers budding.

 

Misty smiles at the fast transition, then frowns minutely, shifting away from Cordelia’s touch.

 

“Wait, let me try it on my own.”

 

Cordelia wasn’t aware that she helped in any way, but she remembers the extent of the Supreme’s power, and the way she was always interested in botany, and then the faint hum of Misty’s skin under the material covering her back. Whatever she did, it had been unintentional.

 

Misty tries again on another plant that has seen better days, but it obviously takes longer than she would have liked. She bites her tongue in frustration and practically _glares_ at the offending vegetation.

 

“It’ll come back to you, don’t worry.” Cordelia says, then realises she said it in the same tone that she uses to address the eleven year olds.

 

Misty says nothing, but looks at the plant as though it has betrayed her. She’s too good natured and grateful to shout, but Cordelia feels like this is her equivalent; silence and glares.

 

“I can’t even do the only thing I’ve ever been good at.” She says causally, with a self-deprecating laugh.

 

Cordelia sighs, but is pretty certain that no matter what she says, she won’t be listened to. She’s been tiptoeing around Misty, she knows that, treating her like the delicate thing she has never been, and she knows the girl must be tiring of the concern that may come across as patronising sometimes. She just wants the effortless conversation to come back, but she’s going to have to get rid of this paranoia somehow.

 

“As your teacher, I’d have to say that this it is perfectly possible that your recent experience has affected your magic, and I’d be surprised if it didn’t. As your Supreme, I’d have to say that you are doing so well readjusting and I’m very proud that you aren’t constantly wrought with trauma. As your friend…” Cordelia observes her now curious face. She’s listening. “I’d have to say that you’re being ridiculous. You haven’t lost any power, you aren’t any less of a witch, in fact you’re _more_ of one. Stop knocking yourself down, because the world has already done that for you, and it’s only up from here, Misty. So stop trying to convince yourself that you’re broken for good, when you should be focusing on fixing yourself. That’s what you’ve always done, it’s what you’re so good at because you’ve had to be, it’s what you want, what I want, and ultimately the only way forward, and I’m not going to let you tell yourself it isn’t possible, because I’m going to help.”

 

Misty looks taken aback, then a small smile creeps onto her face, and she gives Cordelia a lingering, and frankly _loaded_ look, before turning back around and throwing herself back into the task.

 

They don’t talk much for the rest of the greenhouse session, but it’s the most at peace Cordelia has felt for a long time.

 

\----|--|----

 

It is later in the same week that she next stops to listen at Misty’s door.

 

It’s gone three in the morning, and Cordelia’s been making herself a tea infusion that’s supposed to be calming to wash away half-baked nightmares that aren’t quite enough to scare her, but are enough to keep her mostly awake and fully pissed off at the fact.

 

When she walks past Misty’s room, that same all-consuming paranoia rears its head again and she sighs silently in defeat as she approaches the door and listens.

 

There is no sound for a decent amount of time. She sips at her tea until the mug is empty and she’s starting to feel pleasantly drowsy when the first muffled sound of discomfort reaches straining ears.

 

She presses closer to the wood and listens harder, and another tiny, almost pitiful gasp echoes from the bedroom. It’s a small and almost tragic sound, but is followed by cries of anguish in steadily increasing volume. Cordelia screws her eyes shut in pity. It’s been two weeks and the nightmares are still as affecting as ever, and they aren’t even her own.

 

Pretty quickly, it becomes evident that this isn’t a passing discomfort. Misty starts crying in terror, not loud enough to wake the house, but heart-wrenching none the less, and so Cordelia decides that it has crossed the border, so she will too, and slips into the room. It is dark and a little too hot and the curtains are open so the moonlight streams in. With a gentle flick of her wrist, the window opens to let in some cooling fresh air, and the creak the pane makes causes Misty to tense, then whimper softly before clutching at the bed sheets and curling in on herself once more.

 

Cordelia places her mug on the table beside her and slides down the wood of the door to sit on the floor, knees against her chest, clad only in her nightgown, hair ruffled from sleeplessness. She watches passively, protectively, as Misty fights her demons unconsciously, eyebrows furrowed, eyes screwed shut and sobbing every now and then. She’s done this a number of times before, more to give herself some peace of mind than Misty. She watches over the girl, a silent sentinel that she doesn’t know is there.

 

It’s another half an hour before Cordelia realises that this is a pretty bad nightmare. Misty hasn’t stopped calling out, in fact she’s _worse_ , and when her cries get to borderline screaming level, she’s certain she’ll wake Queenie, if not the rest of the girls sleeping on the corridor, so takes action.

 

She slips over to the bed and watches as Misty buries her face in the covers, sobbing in a way that makes Cordelia’s throat close up. She sits down carefully, right on the edge of the mattress, and begins to gently stroke the swamp witch’s back in calming, regular motions. When Misty curls in on herself more, she brushes the hair back from her face, pushing curls over her shoulder and trailing her fingers over the pale column of her neck. Misty looks as if she’s going to calm down, and Cordelia’s now softly hushing her, attempting to reassure her subconsciously.

 

Then, Misty tenses all over. Her eyes snap open and she gasps in a breath and starts away from Cordelia’s touch, suddenly very awake and more scared than Cordelia expects, eyes wide and breathing ragged.

 

Cordelia raises her hands in a bizarre gesture that is reminiscent of showing someone you’re unarmed. “It’s me, it’s ok.”

 

Misty’s eyes dart across her face, as if searching for anything evil in soft, comforting features. She relaxes when her brain catches up.

 

“Miss Cordelia, I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”

 

She shakes her head. “No, no I was already awake. I heard you. I’m sorry, this is really rude of me –“

 

“I think we’re past formalities now.” She says, breathing evening out after her shock. “I’m sorry for startling you like that…”

 

“I’m sorry for startling _you_ like that. Like I said, I apologise for this invasion I was just…well I was worried…”

 

A smile flits across Misty’s face. “I’m ok. Just a nightmare, is all…”

 

“Have you been having them frequently?”

 

Misty draws her knees up to her chest, compacting herself into as small a space as possible in a very un-Misty-like way. “Fairly frequently, yeah.” She mumbles reluctantly.

 

Cordelia sighs and shifts so she’s sitting more on the bed and facing its occupant.

 

“Tell me.”

 

“Tell ya what?”

 

“Tell me about your dreams. It might help.”

 

Misty swallows, glances around her in an uncharacteristically self-conscious manner, and bites her lip.

 

“I dunno, Miss Cordelia, it’s nothin’ really, just like what happened – you know – _there_.”

 

The girl still looks shaken, borderline terrified, and Cordelia cannot cope with the ambiguous dread anymore.

 

“I’m listening, Misty. Tell me what you saw. It helped the other girls. Sharing gets it out in the open and shows you that you needn’t be afraid anymore.”

 

“It’s – it seems real trivial now…” Cordelia’s silent, but leans forward slightly in encouragement. “I’m in this classroom, a science one, from when I was a kid. We’re dissectin’ –“ Cordelia winces internally, this cannot possibly end well. “We’re disectin’ frogs, and I was never into that, of course. It’s a memory, an exaggerated one, but it actually happened. I didn’t know what I was doin’ at that age, I thought other people could do it, like everyone could if they tried hard enough. And I didn’t think, I just brought this little dead frog back to life, and then this kid told the teacher. This was before my community were getting’ too suspicious, before the talk started, so he thought I was just messin’ around, you know? Thought I’d snuck a live one in for a joke or somethin’. When it actually happened, the frog was taken away and I was given another dead one and then shouted at a bit, but – _there_ it was different – he forced me to…to _kill_ it myself, literally forcin’ the knife in my hand and killin’ the poor thing. I know it seems so silly, hardly somethin’ to get nightmares over, but – I can’t explain – it’s like all my emotions are blown up, and it’s agony. I know in real life I killed a guy, stabbed him over and over with a knife with the others until he was dead and I was covered in his blood and I don’t regret that, it was in self-defence, I tell myself. But there’s somethin’ about that little frog, that ain’t done no harm, and bein’ forced to kill it, it just –“ She breaks off as the words get caught in her throat and she has to take a shuddering breath in.

 

Cordelia can’t relate, at all, to the situation, but she knows the feeling; that strange emotion of despair and hopelessness that comes with hell scenarios. Having to take the frog’s life was just an analogy for everything Misty hates and fears about life; the murder of the innocent, the never-ending cycle of life and death that she’s desperately fighting against but that keeps pushing her back, the coldness of the community that bred her, the lack of understanding when it comes to her gift, and she thinks perhaps for Misty there _is_ nothing worse than being forced to take an innocent life at the hands of someone who doesn’t understand her or what she is or how she sees life. It sounds traumatic, to say the least.

 

“It was hell, Misty. Just as terrifying as things are likely to get. You survived six months of it; of course you have nightmares. No one’s going to even question it, let alone mock you for it.”

 

Misty’s brow is still furrowed, but the tension has leaked out of her limbs, sitting cross-legged on the bed. “What about you?”

 

“Me?”

 

“Yeah. You were there too. You gotta have bad dreams, right?”

 

Cordelia opens and closes her mouth several times, deciding what to say.

 

“C’mon, Miss Cordelia, this is how friendships work, you take it in turns to tell and listen.” She smiles like she’s amused and it pushes Cordelia to share.

 

She shrugs. “Well, sometimes I do, but I’ve had nightmares regularly throughout my life, it’s just that the subject matter’s shifted a bit recently. They’re nothing like yours, though, they’re mostly just inconvenient. Nothing to worry about.” She smiles what she hopes is reassuringly.

 

Misty cocks her head on one side and observes the Supreme, like she’s trying to decide whether or not a piece of furniture looks good in a certain spot. She smiles softly again.

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“Now look who’s smothering who.”

 

Misty’s smile grows, and Cordelia’s mirrors it.

 

“I won’t pry.”

 

“I appreciate that. Really, it isn’t that bad.”

 

Misty doesn’t look entirely convinced, but knows Cordelia well enough not to push it further.

 

“Thanks, Miss Cordelia.”

 

“For what?”

 

“I dunno, listenin’. It _has_ helped. I feel a lot better.”

 

“Any time.” She pats Misty’s knee and smiles.

 

“And thanks for...comin’ in. I know ya think you’re not welcome, but I much prefer bein’ woken up by you than scarin’ myself awake. I’m sorry I’ve kept ya up…”

 

“I don’t mind. It’s what I’m here for.”

 

After a few moments of smiling quietly at each other, Cordelia realises that she now has no excuse to be here, and so stands, pulling her robe tighter around her slender frame.

 

“I’ll see you in the morning Misty. If you have any problems, _ever_ , I’m just down the hall. I don’t care what time it is, come and see me. I’m here to help.”

 

Misty smiles guiltlessly and nods. When Cordelia turns again to leave, she’s stopped.

 

“Miss Cordelia –“

 

She faces Misty again, and the swamp witch has risen from the bed and pulls her into an embrace, and this is _not_ the time for her pulse to start racing because Misty is _only wearing that thin nightgown and she can feel her heartbeat against her own…_

“Thanks again. I know I must suck right now, but you’re settin’ me straight.”

 

Cordelia grins into blonde curls and hugs her tighter. “You don’t ‘suck’. I brought you back, didn’t I? It’s my responsibility to see that you recover fully, and besides, I have no qualms about spending time with you.”

 

Misty looks generally content as she slips back under the covers and Cordelia moves towards the door.

 

“Goodnight, Misty.”

 

“G’night, Miss Cordelia.”

\----|--|----

 

“So, following this…incident…restrictions will be enforced regarding alcohol and lights out. The curtains have been replaced, and the floor repaired, and Penelope will be fine, just a little annoyed. Now I know that the majority of you were not involved, but it’s important that you hear this and understand that reckless actions have consequences, it is merely lucky that this time they were not too severe.” Cordelia observes the assembled Coven from her elevated position in front of them. Several irritated glances are thrown towards two guilty looking pyrokinetics.

 

“There will be a curfew for two weeks, starting now. No one out on a weekday after ten. There will be no idiotic conjuring when you’re angry or inebriated, and no including the younger students in the petty antics of the elder. You have to understand, girls, that you present a massive danger to each other, and yourselves, and you must learn how to control it, and above all, when to stop yourself doing something _stupid._ It’s a miracle no one was seriously hurt this time, but I’m not risking anything like it happening again. After two weeks, if I believe you have learnt your lesson, the rules will perhaps relax slightly. But understand this; I will _not_ be so tolerant next time. Any questions?”

 

The room of girls remains silent, seated on the floor, a buzz of tension hovering a foot above their heads. Cordelia tenses her jaw and nods firmly once.

 

“Good. You’re dismissed. Think before you start throwing your magic around girls, remember that.” The witches move immediately and begin to filter out of the room, mumbling amongst themselves.

 

“Does that go for us too?” Misty asks as everyone leaves, legs thrown over the arm of the chair she’s sprawled upon.

 

Cordelia smirks. “Where would you be going after ten, young lady?”

 

She shrugs. “It’d be nice to have the option. I guess I could always go _somewhere else_ to eat and listen to Stevie.”

 

“What, like five paces down the street?”

 

“You never know, maybe I was planning on running away. Or ‘hittin’ the town’ – is that what they call it? – maybe _I_ wanna get drunk and set the house on fire too, and now ya tellin’ me I can’t?”

 

Cordelia rolls her eyes. “You’re not a student, the rules technically don’t apply to you, but I’m going to discourage what you just suggested.”

 

She walks over and swats Misty’s legs, and the swamp witch begrudgingly swings them off the material of the chair, only to move them to the other side when Cordelia moves away again.

 

“Setting a great example for the girls, you are.”

 

“I’m not doin’ _that_ bad!”

 

Cordelia lets out a flutter of laughter. “You play your music louder than all of them combined, always have a hand in the fridge, curse like a sailor when you’re frustrated, and seem to have an inherent disregard for your environment,” A pointed look at her boots on the chair “…and indeed your superiors.”

 

“ _Superiors?_ I guess you mean you?”

 

Cordelia smirks again and nods as she kicks the upturned corner of the rug back down into place where one of the girls must have rumpled it.

 

“I respect you enough! I never say you ain’t doin’ a good job! And I give you incentives to work hard!”

 

“You bribe me. Often with alcohol. Irresponsible.”

 

“Yeah, but it works.”

 

Cordelia raises her eyebrows, her smirk growing by the second. “It’s still irresponsible.”

 

“Hey, I don’t distract you when you _are_ workin’!”

 

Cordelia turns to face her again, observing the playful smile on pale lips and the rewarding glitter in vivacious eyes and the casual way she sits, like she owns the place, limbs spread out languidly, and wild golden curls falling recklessly over near-bare shoulders and the back of the chair. _Distraction? You have no idea…_

“At the moment it feels like I _need_ a distraction, even if it is two underage witches setting their bedroom on fire.”

 

Misty swings her legs onto the ground and leans forward. “You swamped again?”

 

Cordelia shrugs. She’s always “swamped”, as Misty so eloquently put it.

 

“You sleepin’ ok?”

 

“Fine. No better or worse than usual.”

 

“Then let’s get distracted.”

 

Cordelia’s eyes lock onto Misty’s, confused and a little shocked, but if there had been a subtle suggestion in there, it was likely unintentional, as Misty’s expression is innocent and honest.

 

“Come on, let’s go somewhere, or do somethin’, take your mind off this place for a few hours at least.”

 

Cordelia chuckles. “I don’t think I can just _leave_ , Misty…”

 

“You got a council here, they’ll take care of things. Come on, Delia, it’ll be fun.”

 

She doesn’t know if it’s the way the girl looks more alive and happy than she has since the end of her ordeal, or the appeal of the suggestion, or the use of a nickname she has never realized she values so much until now, but she finds herself seriously considering the offer.

 

“Where would we go?”

 

“I dunno, you pick a place. Not for too long, and not too far away, but somewhere calming.”

 

“I really shouldn’t leave –“

 

“You really _shouldn’t_ be stressin’ yourself out. You don’t have to, you’re doin’ an awesome job, so chill. Let’s go somewhere. Anywhere.”

 

Cordelia looks at the clock on the mantelpiece. The day is young, full of possibilities, she would say…

 

“I don’t want to go on a full on trip. Maybe just a stroll, or a recluse for a few hours, nothing too committal.”

 

“Sounds good. How about down by the river? I know the swamp real well, and the paths there steer clear of the wet areas and are certainly relaxin’.”

 

Cordelia thinks of the bayou that Misty’s talked about frequently, but that she has experienced so little of. She’s only been down to the swamp to visit Misty’s shack, that’s probably still crumbling away, but she’s never ventured any further than that.

 

“Isn’t it a little dangerous?”

 

Misty laughs softly and shakes her head. “For you? Come on, you’re the Supreme. For me? Nope, I know the place like the back of my hand. There ain’t nothin’ there that’ll do us harm, I guarantee it. It’s a haven.”

 

Cordelia sighs and folds her arms across her torso. “Well, it seems that you have persuaded me, Misty Day.”

 

Misty beams and shoots up from the chair. “Great! Let’s go now!”

 

“Now?”

 

“Why not?”

 

Cordelia cannot think of an excuse, so shrugs in defeat and lets Misty effectively drag her round the house, giving her only time to get a cardigan and give some hurried instructions to Queenie and Zoe, who smile and say they’ll cover it. The Supreme deserves a break, they decide.

 

The drive is short and the day is warm and Cordelia feels that maybe her and Misty are like the plants they work with; revitalised by the sun and invigorated by nature. The place is lovely, and the air is so clear and fresh, and there’s the hum of tranquillity and laziness that creeps into her bloodstream.

 

“Come on, if ya wanna avoid the gators, this way’s the best.” Misty starts off into the trees, low hanging, twisted branches like thick lengths of rope, roots protruding and making it difficult to avoid tripping up, until they reach something resembling a path.

 

“How big is the swamp?”

 

“Hmm…a good few square miles. Bigger than most think, but once ya know it, it don’t seem it.”

 

The ground is soft, the sun filtering through the overhead canopy, providing shade. She walks beside Misty, relishing in the quiet. There’s nothing to be heard but the buzz of life around them, the small splashes in still water, their footfalls on fallen twigs. It’s been _so long_ since she couldn’t hear a car or road or any sign of humanity. The tension begins to drain from stiff shoulders.

 

“I used to walk this way a lot. I think I’m the only reason the path’s still here.” Misty says contemplatively.

 

“Do you miss it?”

 

“What? The swamp? Yeah, of course. This place raised me when I was left for dead, I owe my life to it, and it means safety and home and acceptance ‘cause no one’s here to question anythin’.”

 

Cordelia can see how this place would be heaven to an outcast like Misty.

 

“I wouldn’t come back though. Not now. The first time I came to the academy, I came runnin’ back. Back when the place was all evil and bad vibes, o’ course. I didn’t wanna stay with my fellow witches, I wanted to stay here ‘cause it was safe. And then of course it wasn’t…but that’s before I met you.”

 

“I should have found you sooner…”

 

Misty smiles. “I was pretty well hidden. I don’t blame ya for what happened to me, I don’t blame anyone. They thought I was somethin’ evil, how could I prove ‘em wrong? If I believed so completely that the devil was inside a member of my tribe, I’d probably burn ‘em too.”

 

Cordelia scoffs and shakes her head. “You didn’t even _know_ Myrtle. You had no idea who she was or why she had been burnt, but you brought her back. I would guess that you didn’t even think about it. It’s just what you do; you bring life. You’re good and kind. She _could_ have had the devil in her for all you knew.”

 

Misty looks like she wants to contradict her, but can’t find anything to respond with. “It hurts. It hurts so bad, I felt sorry for her. Since I had experienced it as well, I didn’t think she deserved that pain. No one does.”

 

The trees thin and they come to the bayou, water mirror still, the clear day creating an almost perfect reflection in its surface, like it’s a gateway to another, identical world. Misty sighs happily.

 

“I’m sad about her. She was kind. She looked for the best in everythin’.”

 

Cordelia’s chest compacts slightly. “I miss her. She was more of a mother to me than Fiona ever was. She demanded it, though, and I’m thankful that she took the first step to what was right. She went gladly. That’s something, I suppose.”

 

Misty leads them along the water’s edge. There’s a space where the drop into the water is small and the ground is flat, trees throw it into shade and a breeze gently swirls round the witches, soothing, cooling.

 

Misty sits on the ground rather inelegantly, gazing out at the water, basking in the heat of the day, and smiling in a way that is the picture of contentment. She glances up at Cordelia, and indicates for her to do the same. The Supreme sits down and arranges her light, floating skirt around her as she leans back on her hands.

 

The afternoon is progressing into evening now, and she is possessed suddenly by the desire to see the sunset. She glances over at Misty, who looks lost in thought.

 

“It’s beautiful here, Misty.”

 

The swamp witch smiles, like the statement gave her more pleasure than Cordelia could possibly understand. “Doesn’t it just make you forget about everythin’?”

 

Cordelia nods as she watches a water bird peck lazily at the water’s edge, looking for insects, she guesses.

 

“Thank you for sharing it with me.”

 

Misty looks at her for a second, then her eyes flick forwards again. “I’d share it with the world, if it would only pay attention. I’d share it with anyone who’s willing to stop for a minute and appreciate it.”

 

There’s wisdom in her words, Cordelia decides.

 

“I’m so glad you’re back.” She says suddenly, without thinking about it.

 

Misty meets her gaze and leans further back. “So am I. I’m never gonna be able to show you how much I appreciate what ya did, Miss Cordelia.”

 

Cordelia swallows. It’s getting harder and harder to restrain herself. Especially now, with Misty in her natural habitat, wild and usually out-of-place looks blending seamlessly into the surroundings, emulating the land that bore her, the physical embodiment of the beautiful scenery that flourishes without anyone looking. _“Lovely” doesn’t even begin to cover it…_

The setting is romantic, she supposes, and the heat is lulling and the quiet is so inviting. She could so easily tell her, if she hasn’t shown it enough already. She could say, out loud, how the swamp witch who she was meant to train as her mother’s replacement, then protect as a student, has completely enchanted and entranced her, how she doesn’t need to be repaid for what she did, because she’s here, with her, alive and wonderful and every time she smiles, that’s more of a reward than Cordelia would ever need. She’s almost thankful for the six months without her, because now she’s back, it’s like she’s falling for her all over again.

 

But she doesn’t. She isn’t sure why, but she’s hesitant, and a little scared and uncertain. So she smiles softly and moves closer so their shoulders touch, and sits quietly beside the swamp witch, in her swamp, and they watch the sun set.

 

\----|--|----

 

She’s almost certain she can hear a baby crying.

 

There have been no children under the age of eleven in the house for…since she can remember, actually, perhaps never, but she could have sworn she heard one crying.

 

She pauses in the strange silence of the academy at midnight, and waits. There it is again! It is a quiet, tired noise. Not particularly unhappy; the sort of noise children make because they feel they have to. She drifts around the landing in some bizarre ghost impression, trying to detect the source. The noise comes once more, and she thinks it came from above. She looks up at the attic hatch curiously.

 

She doesn’t hear the crying again, and tries to make minimal noise as she wills the hatch to swing open and the ladder to glide down towards her, metal rusted and creaking. She makes short work of it, even in her nightdress, and enters the room that she has never been in before. It was Spalding’s, and they respected his personal space, even if it was the only thing of his they respected.

 

The room is surprising, to say the least. A coating of dust sits lightly on many surfaces, but perhaps not as much as she would have expected, since it has been uninhabited for over half a year. The walls are covered with shelves, which are themselves filled with dolls of all sizes, appearances and construction. The place is decorated with lace and floral patterns, predominantly in pink, white and yellow, and Cordelia wonders if this was actually the room of the silent, bedraggled old butler, or she’s walked straight into the hideout of a seven year old, and a girly seven year old at that. Then she sees a suit hanging up on the outside of the wardrobe, shabby and now bleached by sun from the open curtains; one of Spalding’s suits. Cordelia frowns and looks around, but the room is entirely empty. It smells stale and unlived in.

 

She shakes her head. It is none of her business what Spalding did in his free time, and she shouldn’t judge. Besides, now he’s gone, they should probably sell his things and use the valuable space for storage.

 

Cordelia laughs pityingly to herself as she turns round and climbs back down the ladder. Her sleeplessness is obviously getting to her. She must have imagined the cries. The idea was slightly ridiculous in the first place, and now all is quiet, as it was before.

 

She must be going a little crazy.

 

That’s what she tells herself when she thinks she recalls seeing a cradle in the attic rocking slightly, as if pushed by phantom hands.

 

\----|--|----

 

“So…I know ya can use bay leaves, but ain’t there that other one? The root thing?”

 

“Charrow root?”

 

“That’s it. Is it protection again?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“It seems like most roots are.”

 

“That’s right. They’re what’s holding the plant in place, so they’re the steadfast, sturdy bits. If you want poisons or harmful substances, they come from the flowers as the initial line of attack. Roots are the last resort of defence. As a general rule, of course, there are always exceptions.”

 

Misty nods and stares at the text of the book open in front of her for a moment. “And the healin’ parts…that’s the leaves? Or stems?”

 

“Usually. In the most common examples, yes. Roots are often good for that too, however.”

 

Misty looks satisfied, and turns the page, eyes roaming a diagram of a plant that, from Cordelia’s upside-down vantage point of the book, looks like a foxglove.

 

“I’m still tryin’ to figure out what’s in swamp mud, but it seems like a whole mess o’ stuff.”

 

“Perhaps it was just you.”

 

Misty glances up, and raises her eyebrows in question.

 

“Perhaps it was your magic that made it extraordinary.”

 

Misty considers this. She is lying on her front along the length of the Supreme’s bed, kicking her legs in the air, facing Cordelia, who sits propped up with pillows against the headboard, glasses on, reading the book open in her own lap.

 

“Ya think it’s just regular mud?”

 

“Maybe not, but I think it’s perfectly possible that the majority of its healing abilities are just you using it as a channel.”

 

Misty looks as though she’s going to rebut with something humble, but closes her mouth and considers. “I ain’t never thought of that.”

 

“Just a theory.” Cordelia shrugs casually, eyes not leaving the print in front of her.

 

There’s a lull as they go back to respective reading. Cordelia isn’t exactly sure how and why Misty is in her bedroom, on her bed. She vaguely remembers inviting her, for some reason, probably about alchemy questions, but she doesn’t dwell on it too long; it’s sort of nice having company in a usually solitary activity.

 

“Miss Cordelia?” The Supreme looks up. She has told the girl on several occasions that there is no need for formalities, but the name has stuck, and if she’s honest, it’s sort of endearing now.

 

“Hmm?”

 

“How long have you worn glasses?”

 

Slightly taken by surprise by the question, she stammers slightly. “I – um – since I was…seventeen, I think. A long time. Why?”

 

Misty smirks. “I don’t think I’ve ever properly noticed them before. They’re kind of adorable.” She says contemplatively, like she’s thinking aloud, and Cordelia _knows_ that she’s gone noticeably pink beneath the frames.

 

She looks bashfully down at her book. “They signalled me out as the nerdy little shit I was from a pretty young age.” She murmurs.

 

Misty laughs happily. “Accept a compliment, for Christ’s sake woman!”

 

Cordelia just bites her lip to stop her own laughter, unintentionally making Misty’s smile _wider_ and she it’s worrying how much this is reminiscent of a fourteen-year-olds’ sleepover.

 

“ _Thank you_ , Misty.” She says overdramatically, and Misty smirks triumphantly then goes back to reading, rolling onto her back and lifting the book above her face.

 

Cordelia reads the same line three times before it registers in her brain, her mind wandering. She glances quickly at the girl, too engrossed in the book to notice the attention, and then feels her eyes being drawn back to her moments later. Misty’s neckline is low, exposing an elegant collarbone and a hint of cleavage. Her hair is spread out on the bed around her face, and Cordelia traces the graceful sweep of her exposed neck, eyes drifting down to where her chest rises and falls gently with each calm breath. Her skin is like snow, like cream; flawless and smooth and young and _inviting_ and for the first proper time when looking at the girl, the tangible, burning stirrings of what is easily identifiable as _lust_ turns in the bottom of Cordelia’s stomach, causing her mouth to go dry and her breathing to deepen. She wonders if her skin tastes as delightful as it looks, and then berates herself for the thought, and drags reluctant eyes away from the girl who must be _years_ her junior and is practically her student, if not officially. The muscles in her legs tense and she’s really quite hot all of a sudden and _for God’s sake, pull yourself together, Cordelia._

She pushes the thought to the back of her mind and the feeling to the bottom of her gut and forces herself to continue reading, ashamed, confused, and worryingly still uncomfortably warm.

 

\----|--|----

 

“Is it true she was burned alive?”

 

“Yes. It is. And although it is a sensitive topic, I’m sure she’d want her misfortunes to show how caution is essential, even if the times are more tolerant for people like us.”

 

“And she brought herself back again?”

 

“Yes, she has the power of resurgence and has had from a very young age…and it’s very strong and naturally she was able to channel it to heal herself. If you’re so interested in her past, why don’t you go and ask her? I’m sure she’d be a lot less reluctant to tell you than I am.”

 

“It’s really cool and all, but I would kinda feel awkward bringing it up, miss. I don’t want her to have to talk about it.”

 

“Well she’s not the type to let it get her down. It’s over now. I doubt she’d resent you for asking.”

 

“And is it true she got stuck in hell?”

 

Cordelia sighs and rolls her eyes. “Yes. For six months when the four girls who were currently living in the Coven were forced to perform the Seven Wonders. I brought her back. Is that all?”

 

It looks like it certainly isn’t all, but the tone indicates that no more questions are welcome, and so the girl reluctantly nods.

 

“Misty welcomes all questions, Grace, she wouldn’t be offended if you just asked her. I thought she gets on really well with you…”

 

“Oh she does! We all really like her, she’s awesome, but like I said, it’s a bit of a tender subject. Besides, asking you is like second to actually asking her herself.”

 

“The Supreme doesn’t speak for every individual in her Coven, you know, at least not here.”

 

“Oh, I wasn’t talking about you being the Supreme.”

 

When Cordelia gives her a confused look, she stares straight back, unabashedly, as if it were blindingly obvious what she meant.

 

\----|--|----

 

It’s only a few nights later when she finds herself outside Misty’s room again.

 

It’s been a good few weeks since she last did this, which shows an improvement in her paranoia, but she couldn’t sleep, and was thinking about her mother and Misty and the baby’s cries she was still pretty certain she had heard and Hank and Misty and expanding the Coven and the next Supreme summit meeting and Misty and her thoughts were a loud jumble of white noise, so she pulled herself out of bed to get a glass of water, and ended up straying to Misty’s door on the way, just to check, she assured herself.

 

It’s a few minutes of peaceful silence that begins to lull Cordelia before she hears the first muffled cry. When they don’t cease after she’s counted to a hundred, she decides that she must follow through her usual action, and slips into the room.

 

 _This is getting ridiculous, Cordelia,_ she berates herself, _the girl never asked for your help._

She watches Misty bury into the bed sheets, shoulders shaking, whimpering quietly. Cordelia stands at the door as she has done before, and watches sadly as the girl begins to sob. Her cries aren’t like they usually are. They’re not scared or horrified, they’re despairing and mournful, like she’s sad instead of terrified, murmuring incoherently into her pillow with an intonation that sounds horribly like begging. Cordelia balls her hands into fists at her sides.

 

When Misty curls up tighter, pulling at her hair and gasping out a sound that sounds worryingly like Cordelia’s name, but that could have been her imagination, the Supreme crosses the room to stand over her. The girl has never looked smaller; trying to make herself invisible so that perhaps the demons will leave her be. This is supposed to be her home, she is supposed to feel safe, but the greatest threat comes from the one place Cordelia cannot protect her. Her battleground is her bed, her own room, dark in the night and suddenly very big and empty. Her enemy is her own mind, her memories, her subconscious. Cordelia would label it posttraumatic stress disorder, but technically she never physically experienced hell, it was her soul that went there. These scars run deeper than meaningless diagnostics. They run deeper than Cordelia had thought. She wonders for the first time if the girl has lied to her. Maybe she doesn’t have _any_ good nights. Maybe every night is like this for her. Maybe the reason she usually stays up so late is because she’s terrified of what sleep will bring.

 

And Cordelia’s heart breaks as she watches this unstoppable force of good be crushed by the evils she has experienced.

 

She watches as the brightest light is smothered by the darkness cast by her own shadows.

 

She promised that she would get her light back, and now she has, she will make sure it glows brighter than it ever has.

 

She slips in beside the still whimpering swamp witch and lies for a moment on the threshold, feeling the inevitable weight of the following move, but how can she possibly get in any deeper than this? She’s about as deep as anyone is ever going to get.

 

She envelops Misty in her arms, like she did when she saw her again after going through hell for her return. She holds the swamp witch against her, feeling her tremble, and sensing her returning to consciousness. Her arms are looped round Misty’s waist, her chest against her back, pulling her out of her nightmares and into safety. The girl stirs and exhales shakily, although she doesn’t start or tense, in fact she shows no surprise at all, and her breathing levels out as the demons scatter from the Supreme’s warmth.

 

Silence lingers for what could be minutes.

 

“The victory’s worth the scars, right?”

 

Cordelia presses her face softly into tangled curls. “You tell me.”

 

“I’m not sure.”

 

There is silence as remaining tears slip silently from blue eyes onto her pillow. She closes her eyes, then turns round to face Cordelia unexpectedly, and the Supreme is taken aback by the audacity of her own actions now she is faced with the swamp witch. The darkness throws shadows into the hollows of the girl’s eyes and under her cheekbones, making her look haunting and too mature for her years and Cordelia realises that she’s spent all the time she’s known her considering Misty Day to be innocent and naïve, and she isn’t. She has never been. She’s clever and brilliant. She is world wise because she has had to be. She is under no delusions about the goodness of humanity; she knows how cruel the world is, but she fights back with positivity and her own kindness. Cordelia realises in that moment that Misty Day has never been naïve, she has simply always been good.

 

And right now, she is scared. That goodness is being crushed by the darkness she is well aware of, but has chosen to fight against. If it gets too much, perhaps she will just…stop fighting…

 

“Of course it is.” Cordelia whispers through the darkness. “ _Of course it is._ ” She reasserts.

 

She swears the corners of Misty’s mouth turn up ever so slightly.

 

“I’ve got some healin’ to do.”

 

“We both have.”

 

“What if I never do?”

 

The fear in her voice is so hideously restrained, like she’s holding it back and trying to be brave in the face of devastation.

 

“I don’t care.” Says Cordelia, and she swallows thickly, then inhales unsteadily. “I don’t care what state you’re in. I don’t care if you can’t bring yourself to ever forget. I don’t care who you turn out to be, Misty, because it’ll still be all you. Good and bad, experiences make up who we are, and of course it’s difficult, and I want nothing more than for you to feel whole again, but if you can’t manage it, then accept it.”

 

Misty stares at her with wide eyes, and she tells herself that she will not cry. Not now. Not when she’s trying to be the strong one here.

 

“Before the Seven Wonders, I told you that you had blinded me with your light. That was wrong. You didn’t blind me; that implies that you impaired me. No, you have _dazzled_ me, Misty Day, with your light, and I can’t surrender fast enough.”

 

Misty shifts closer, and Cordelia can feel the heat rolling off her, breath dusting across her throat.

 

“It seems to me that right now, _you’re_ the light, Miss Cordelia.” _You’re drawing me in and chasing the darkness away…_

Her voice is little above a whisper, but Cordelia can feel it resonating round her head again and again. _I’m bearing my soul to you now, but I suspect you’ve seen it already…_

 

“I’m whatever you need me to be.” _I’m yours. I’m so yours._

“I need…”

 

She speaks so quietly Cordelia cannot be certain she actually heard it.

 

She closes the distance just so she can be closer to her, foreheads touching, and Cordelia doesn’t seem to have any control over her own body anymore, like it knows what her mind wants better than she does. She’s the _Supreme_ , for Christ’s sake; a steadfast, impenetrable symbol of integrity and leadership in her Coven, and she’s so beyond control that it’s laughable.

 

When Misty lets out a shuddering breath and slides her eyes shut, Cordelia’s hand rises to hold her jaw and she presses a kiss to the bridge of her nose. It’s a weak, cowardly signal. She’s shaking too, her heart racing, her thoughts impossible to organise. Misty doesn’t move, but Cordelia thinks she relaxes slightly, leaning into the gesture a fraction, and the Supreme’s lips travel across to her cheek, where the last of her tears have dried. Misty sighs almost imperceptibly as she kisses her once, twice, on the cheek, shifting her body closer under the covers.

 

As her lips are drawn lower and hover a hairsbreadth away from the Cajun’s, it truly hits her how overdue this is, how utterly and entirely inevitable it has been, maybe even right from the start, and how stupid she was to ever try and stop it. It seems fitting, since in past interactions she has always been the more passive, that it is Cordelia who closes the gap.

 

As their lips touch, just barely, the tempest of thoughts and noise in Cordelia’s head goes impossibly loud, and them completely silent. There is the strangest moment of limbo as she brushes a kiss across Misty’s mouth, a total peace and tranquillity, like the silence that comes when you close a window, eliminating the tiny crack. She realises that she has kissed Misty before, but still understands that this is their first kiss, and it isn’t a result of desperation or fear or necessity, she’s doing it because there’s nothing she wants to do more.

 

She can feel Misty’s heartbeat thudding under her fingertips that rest against her pulse point, just below her jaw, as she pulls away. A tender, brief, ghost of a kiss. She waits in the space between them, wondering how badly she’s messed everything up, how quickly this is going to kill her no matter what direction it takes. It’s impossible to gauge Misty’s response in the dark, but she’s breathing softly and her cheek is warm in Cordelia’s hand and her heart leaps into her throat when the swamp witch moves forward a fraction and their lips meet again. It’s slow and tentative, almost unexplored territory, but when Misty moves against Cordelia, the heat flares up in her veins, and she realises that this is not going to be restrained for much longer.

 

Misty’s hand flutters over her upper arm and rests at the dip of her waist, urging her closer still as she leans further into the kiss. She wonders if the soft tingling of Misty’s lips is the magic the girl exudes that has always been compatible with Cordelia’s or the fact that she has been waiting so long to do this and thus her nerves are on overdrive. The witch’s lips are soft in the dark, warm and welcoming in a way a kiss has never been before for Cordelia, and her hand slides from a strong jaw to tangle in blonde curls as she opens her mouth against Misty’s. The swamp witch gasps almost imperceptibly against her and gently draws the Supreme’s bottom lip between her own and when she pulls her even closer and their tongues tangle, a deep-rooted ache ignites in Cordelia’s very soul, stifling a shiver as goosebumps rise across her skin.

 

She tastes like herbal tea and the perfume of flowers and the sunset over the swamp, she smells earthy and human and real, feels like there was never a second when her body wasn’t on this earth. The kiss gets deeper and deeper and they’ve forgotten how they got there and she can feel every dip of Misty’s body against her own and the thin sheet draped over them and every individual strand of wild hair in between her fingers. Her skin is tingling with sensitivity as lips get more demanding and her tongue gets bolder, and when she presses her hips into Misty’s the girl sighs into the embrace.

 

She gently bites Misty’s lip and the girl whimpers softly in response. This was not her intention when she walked into the room that night, but she supposes boundaries are made for crossing, or completely smashing down if the situation demands it. Their legs entwine and Misty’s grip is bruising in a thrillingly feral way as she throws herself completely into this strange turn of events. She thinks about how awkward this could have been, but it seems that whatever tension has been building in her for the past however-long-they’ve-known-each-other is not entirely absent in the other woman, as her kiss is all-encompassing and intoxicating and addictive, and when she breaks away for a heartbeat, she feels herself gravitating back towards welcoming lips and getting lost all over again. She loses track of time; seconds or minutes or _hours_ she doesn’t know, but the floodgates have been opened and she realises that she’d happily stay here forever, getting out all her frustration and confusion and lust and love. Her hands move from curls to frame Misty’s face, then trail down her neck, past the swell of her chest to grip her hips, pulling every inch of the swamp witch against her, hopeless and trapped.

 

Misty’s all soft curves and sunlight and she’s so drunk on her that she isn’t thinking about the future, near or distant, not thinking about where this might go or what might change. She pulls away, breathless, and meets Misty’s now dark eyes through enlarged pupils, feeling like she should say something in the silence, twinned heavy breathing echoing through a quiet that could span for miles, for all Cordelia knows. She should explain herself, or pour her heart out and beg Misty for acceptance or forgiveness or affection or _something_ , because she feels like begging right now. Misty’s swathed in darkness, but she’s looking at Cordelia like she can’t believe she exists, like she’s just discovered the cure for every illness, or a Stevie Nicks album she’s never heard before, and there’s something so raw and honest and earth-shattering in her reverent expression that Cordelia doesn’t speak for fear of ruining it.

She kisses her again, over and over again, pressing their lips together before pulling away after only a moment. Misty’s shaking slightly, and her skin is hot and her breathing heavy and Cordelia’s lips travel to her neck and the gasp she lets out sounds like a plea, like disbelief verging on desperation.

 

Somewhere in the midst of lips and skin and tongues and teeth she’s leaning over the swamp witch and those wonderful, dexterous hands, bereft of the usual rings, trace the curve of Cordelia’s throat and slip under the material of her nightdress and her touch is _burning._ Their lips meet again and she should probably be embarrassed at how completely _gone_ she is, so totally beyond the point of no return, all at the mercy of one Cajun swamp witch and her accent and her eyes and her lips and smile and magic and habits and history. She’s not thinking in general at the moment, and is more than willing to _not think_ for the time being.

 

She thinks she says “I love you”, but she can’t pinpoint when exactly. She’s been saying it for as long as she can remember, whispering it into her cold mattress as she dreams or watching it leak out with her tears. It wrapped itself around Misty when she returned and caressed her as she bloomed back into life and sighed into the air between them when they sat watching the sun set over the swamp. It is the despair she felt at her loss and the euphoria at her return, the desire that burns in her stomach when her gaze lingers on snowy skin and the warmth that blossoms wonderfully in her chest as she watches her walk in the garden at night from her bedroom window. It is the power crackling between them, the passion for the world around them and the care that has nurtured the Coven into splendour. It is the all-consuming pull she feels whenever she looks at Misty, the terrifying joy and fear and hope that can be lit in her with simply a smile.

 

But she thinks she says it out loud, for the first time, into skin that tastes as she’d dreamed it would. She thinks she gasps it when stars burst behind her eyelids and Misty’s eyes fill with tears and look infinite all of a sudden, like nebulae and galaxies. She thinks she mouths it silently, or maybe not silently, as she traces intricacies over whatever skin she can reach, as long arms envelop her and gentle hands explore.

 

She’s _certain_ she said it.

 

And she’s pretty sure she heard it back.

 

\----|--|----

 

After due consideration, she decides to describe herself as _“gayer than initially anticipated”._

It’s surprising how few questions are asked. It’s also surprising how little changes.

 

She had been worried that Misty would be distant, or confused, or would regret it, but just as the time she had kissed her to bring a flower back to life back when everything was under attack, she is unashamed and overjoyed. Cordelia thinks this is fortunate, because she’s awkward enough for the both of them in general.

 

They don’t sit down and talk it through, or define terms or boundaries. When Cordelia wakes up tangled in the swamp witch, she smiles, and a burden lifts indefinitely. Misty stirs and Cordelia holds her breath, eyes unsure, but her smile is answered with a full blown grin and the girl kisses her on the forehead, then shifts onto her side and goes back to sleep. Cordelia feels pathetic for lying there and watching her breathing in and out, but feels no desire to move whatsoever.

 

When they go walking with a group of girls to Delphine LaLaurie’s house, as is a Coven custom, Misty takes her hand and she barely notices, merely shooting the placid Cajun a glance through her sunglasses, and then relaxing into it. Some of the girls whisper, but some are not surprised. Queenie shoots Zoe a knowing glance, and the girl smiles and rolls her eyes; _“about time”_ …

 

No one questions Misty moving into Cordelia’s room, or lone strolls to the swamp, or when they get distracted with making each other laugh. There is talk among the students, but they all seem genuinely taken with the idea. Several proclaim it as “cute” and express nothing but happiness for their Supreme and that strange girl that appeared out of nowhere but could do cool things with plants.

 

Exactly two months after Cordelia had called upon Papa Legba, to the day, he appears again. She watches Misty from the window, as she has made a habit of doing (whether or not Misty is aware of this attention is a mystery), and then the sourceless wind starts up and the atmosphere crackles and then he is there.

 

“You did well, Supreme.”

 

“Yes I did.”

 

“I intended to trap you there.”

 

“You failed.”

 

“I certainly did.” He moves towards the window, towards her. “You, however, succeeded. Congratulations. It is massively overdue.”

 

“If you’re here to take her back, I would have to advise against it.” Her voice is entirely without fear, the threat ringing strong, her eyes never leaving the silhouette of the topic of conversation as she floats across the lawn.

 

He chuckles, and she shivers before she can stop herself, out of discomfort as opposed to fear. “I had hoped to reclaim her. I thought perhaps I could offer you something, but I was stupid to think that _you_ would ever trade anyone’s life for your own purposes…” He follows her gaze over her shoulder. “Especially _hers_ …”

 

“I have you to thank. I would never have attempted it if you hadn’t suggested it.”

 

He laughs again. “You are quite welcome.”

 

There is silence, and Cordelia wonders why he is there at all.

 

“She is touched, you know. She will never be the same. She has been kissed by hell, and it has left its mark.”

 

Cordelia smiles softly. “And she wears them like battle scars.”

 

“You think the kiss of the Supreme will cure her?”

 

“I see nothing that needs curing.”

 

“She is tainted.”

 

“She is perfectly imperfect, as she has always been.”

 

“You’ve fallen _hard,_ white witch.”

 

She raises her hand to the glass of the window, smiling again.

 

“She will end up there again someday, you know.”

 

She shakes her head. “No. She will not.”

 

“How could you know that?”

 

“Because hell couldn’t trap her. Hell couldn’t crush her light. It will never succeed, especially not a second time. She will never go back there.”

 

He makes no comment.

 

“You cannot have her. Not today. Not ever.” She looks over at him for the first time, and he smirks at the emotion in her eyes.

 

“I cannot either. She cannot be had. She is the Earth’s, and that is all. I am lucky that she will have me. We are equals.”

 

“Your Coven is lucky to have you.”

 

“It is what I live for.”

 

“Indeed. Quite literally. When the next Supreme rises, and you begin to have all of your energy and power _drained_ from your very body, how do you think that will feel?”

 

She laughs gently. “Like a relief, probably.”

 

“And to her?”

 

“An inevitability.”

 

“More trauma for her to suffer?”

 

She turns to face the voodoo apparition, his red eyes scanning her once more, yet a little more uncertain about what he finds this time.

 

“I beat you, Papa. I won, for once. _Life_ won. I will not give you anything, as you have done nothing to earn anything. No deals shall be made. Ever. I have all I could ever possibly want. Thank you for the hint.”

 

He smirks, and says nothing.

 

“I retrieved her alone, fair and square. She was too bright for you anyway, darkness evaporates from her. I love her, and I will love her forever, so I’m afraid you are wasting your time. This Coven has a Supreme, and she isn’t afraid to challenge death.”

 

He smirks wider, and bows his head, conceding. He tips his hat in surrender, and the victory burns strongly in Cordelia’s soul.

 

“Very well. You play a good game, Miss Goode, and you have won. I wish you the best, and I hope this shall not be the last time we cross paths.”

 

“I hope it is.” She replies, and he grins, showing sickening teeth. Then he tips his hat once more and is gone.

 

Cordelia sighs in satisfaction and relief, the last tendrils of evil sent running from the house. She goes back to the window and gazes out again.

 

Misty spins slowly, and the fireflies take flight. The girl turns to face the house, and this time Cordelia does not retreat into the shadows, but meets the witch’s gaze. She smiles up at the Supreme, and the Supreme smiles back, before disappearing. She emerges at the back door moments later, and without hesitation, walks out into the night. She joins Misty in the garden, smiling as the girl grins back, taking her hands, and the fireflies hang in the calm night air; pinpricks of light piercing the darkness.

 

 

 


End file.
